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Form   /fɔrm/   Listen
noun
Form  n.  
1.
The shape and structure of anything, as distinguished from the material of which it is composed; particular disposition or arrangement of matter, giving it individuality or distinctive character; configuration; figure; external appearance. "The form of his visage was changed." "And woven close close, both matter, form, and style."
2.
Constitution; mode of construction, organization, etc.; system; as, a republican form of government.
3.
Established method of expression or practice; fixed way of proceeding; conventional or stated scheme; formula; as, a form of prayer. "Those whom form of laws Condemned to die."
4.
Show without substance; empty, outside appearance; vain, trivial, or conventional ceremony; conventionality; formality; as, a matter of mere form. "Though well we may not pass upon his life Without the form of justice."
5.
Orderly arrangement; shapeliness; also, comeliness; elegance; beauty. "The earth was without form and void." "He hath no form nor comeliness."
6.
A shape; an image; a phantom.
7.
That by which shape is given or determined; mold; pattern; model.
8.
A long seat; a bench; hence, a rank of students in a school; a class; also, a class or rank in society. "Ladies of a high form."
9.
The seat or bed of a hare. "As in a form sitteth a weary hare."
10.
(Print.) The type or other matter from which an impression is to be taken, arranged and secured in a chase.
11.
(Fine Arts) The boundary line of a material object. In (painting), more generally, the human body.
12.
(Gram.) The particular shape or structure of a word or part of speech; as, participial forms; verbal forms.
13.
(Crystallog.) The combination of planes included under a general crystallographic symbol. It is not necessarily a closed solid.
14.
(Metaph.) That assemblage or disposition of qualities which makes a conception, or that internal constitution which makes an existing thing to be what it is; called essential or substantial form, and contradistinguished from matter; hence, active or formative nature; law of being or activity; subjectively viewed, an idea; objectively, a law.
15.
Mode of acting or manifestation to the senses, or the intellect; as, water assumes the form of ice or snow. In modern usage, the elements of a conception furnished by the mind's own activity, as contrasted with its object or condition, which is called the matter; subjectively, a mode of apprehension or belief conceived as dependent on the constitution of the mind; objectively, universal and necessary accompaniments or elements of every object known or thought of.
16.
(Biol.) The peculiar characteristics of an organism as a type of others; also, the structure of the parts of an animal or plant.
Good form or Bad form, the general appearance, condition or action, originally of horses, afterwards of persons; as, the members of a boat crew are said to be in good form when they pull together uniformly. The phrases are further used colloquially in description of conduct or manners in society; as, it is not good form to smoke in the presence of a lady.


verb
Form  v. t.  (past & past part. formed; pres. part. forming)  
1.
To give form or shape to; to frame; to construct; to make; to fashion. "God formed man of the dust of the ground." "The thought that labors in my forming brain."
2.
To give a particular shape to; to shape, mold, or fashion into a certain state or condition; to arrange; to adjust; also, to model by instruction and discipline; to mold by influence, etc.; to train. "'T is education forms the common mind." "Thus formed for speed, he challenges the wind."
3.
To go to make up; to act as constituent of; to be the essential or constitutive elements of; to answer for; to make the shape of; said of that out of which anything is formed or constituted, in whole or in part. "The diplomatic politicians... who formed by far the majority."
4.
To provide with a form, as a hare. See Form, n., 9. "The melancholy hare is formed in brakes and briers."
5.
(Gram.) To derive by grammatical rules, as by adding the proper suffixes and affixes.
6.
(Elec.) To treat (plates) so as to bring them to fit condition for introduction into a storage battery, causing one plate to be composed more or less of spongy lead, and the other of lead peroxide. This was formerly done by repeated slow alternations of the charging current, but now the plates or grids are coated or filled, one with a paste of red lead and the other with litharge, introduced into the cell, and formed by a direct charging current.


Form  v. i.  
1.
To take a form, definite shape, or arrangement; as, the infantry should form in column.
2.
To run to a form, as a hare.
To form on (Mil.), to form a lengthened line with reference to (any given object) as a basis.


suffix
-form  suff.  A suffix used to denote in the form or shape of, resembling, etc.; as, valiform; oviform.





Collaborative International Dictionary of English 0.48


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"Form" Quotes from Famous Books



... themselves told to satisfy that demand which in due time is to produce the supply of the novel. Of these the two oldest, as regards the actual forms in which we have them, are capital examples of the more and less original handling of "common-form" stories or motives. They were not then, be it remembered, quite such common-form as now—the rightful heir kept out of his rights, the usurper of them, the princess gracious or scornful or both by turns, the quest, the adventure, ...
— The English Novel • George Saintsbury
... rather steep inclined plane until we came to a flight of four steps which landed us on the chancel floor, where another inclined plane brought us up to the foot of the two steps leading to the altar; we were told that there was only one other church built in such a form "in all England." We were now well within the borders of the county of Warwickshire, which, with the other two Midland Counties of Worcestershire and Staffordshire, formerly contained more leading Roman ...
— From John O'Groats to Land's End • Robert Naylor and John Naylor
... in my path in a very attractive form,' said Vandeloup to himself, as he went back to those dreary columns of figures, 'and I'm afraid that I will ...
— Madame Midas • Fergus Hume
... country in general scrubby, with occasional reaches of open forest land. The rosemary-leaved tree of the 23rd was very abundant. An Acacia with spiny phyllodia, the lower half attached to the stem, the upper bent off in the form of an open hook, had been observed by me on the sandstone ridges of Liverpool Plains: and the tout ensemble reminded me forcibly of that locality. The cypress-pine, several species of Melaleuca, and a fine Ironbark, with broad lanceolate, but not cordate, glaucous leaves, and very dark bark, ...
— Journal of an Overland Expedition in Australia • Ludwig Leichhardt
... Historical, by Lord Rosebery, consists not so much in his recollections of people as in the delight of reading good prose. Lord Rosebery has a natural dignity and a charm of lucid phrasing that adapts itself admirably to the essay form he has chosen. The subjects he takes up are beloved figures of the past. Robert Burns, as Lord Rosebery talks of him, walks about in Dumfries and holds spellbound by sheer personal charm the guests of the tavern. There are papers on Burke, on Dr. ...
— When Winter Comes to Main Street • Grant Martin Overton


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