Formal

n.	1.	(Chem.) See Methylal.
a.	1.	Belonging to the form, shape, frame, external appearance, or organization of a thing.
	2.	Belonging to the constitution of a thing, as distinguished from the matter composing it; having the power of making a thing what it is; constituent; essential; pertaining to or depending on the forms, so called, of the human intellect. Of [the sounds represented by] letters, the material part is breath and voice; the formal is constituted by the motion and figure of the organs of speech. - Holder.
	3.	Done in due form, or with solemnity; according to regular method; not incidental, sudden or irregular; express; as, he gave his formal consent. His obscure funeral . . . No noble rite nor formal ostentation. - Shak.
	4.	Devoted to, or done in accordance with, forms or rules; punctilious; regular; orderly; methodical; of a prescribed form; exact; prim; stiff; ceremonious; as, a man formal in his dress, his gait, his conversation. A cold-looking, formal garden, cut into angles and rhomboids. - W. Irwing. She took off the formal cap that confined her hair. - Hawthorne.
	5.	Having the form or appearance without the substance or essence; external; as, formal duty; formal worship; formal courtesy, etc.
	6.	Dependent in form; conventional. Still in constraint your suffering sex remains, Or bound in formal or in real chains. - Pope.
	7.	Sound; normal. To make of him a formal man again. - Shak. Formal cause See under Cause.

Adj.	1.	formal - being in accord with established forms and conventions and requirements (as e.g. of formal dress); "pay one's formal respects"; "formal dress"; "a formal ball"; "the requirement was only formal and often ignored"; "a formal education" Antonyms: informal - not formal; "conservative people unaccustomed to informal dress"; "an informal free-and-easy manner"; "an informal gathering of friends"
	2.	formal - characteristic of or befitting a person in authority; "formal duties"; "an official banquet"
	3.	formal - (of spoken and written language) adhering to traditional standards of correctness and without casual, contracted, and colloquial forms; "the paper was written in formal English" Antonyms: informal - used of spoken and written language
	4.	formal - represented in simplified or symbolic form Synonyms: schematic, conventional
	5.	formal - logically deductive; "formal proof"
	6.	formal - refined or imposing in manner or appearance; befitting a royal court; "a courtly gentleman" Synonyms: courtly, stately, elegant

1.		FORMAL - FORmula MAnipulation Language. An early Fortran extension for symbolic mathematics. ["FORMAL, A Formula Manipulation Language", C.K. Mesztenyi, Computer Note CN-1, CS Dept, U Maryland (Jan 1971)].
2.		FORMAL - A data manipulation language for nonprogrammers from IBM LASC. ["FORMAL: A Forms-Oriented and Visual-Directed Application System", N.C. Shu, IEEE Computer 18(8):38-49 (1985)].

High-Church, Latinate, accepted, acknowledged, adjectival, admitted, adverbial, anatomic, approved, architectonic, architectural, arranged, attributive, authorized, awkward, baccalaureate service, baptismal, being done, bloated, bombastic, businesslike, byname, celebration, ceremonial, ceremony, chivalric, chivalrous, cognominal, comme il faut, commencement, conditional, confining, conformable, conjunctive, constructional, conventionalized, convocation, copulative, courtly, cramped, cumbrous, customary, de rigueur, decent, definite, demure, dignified, diminutive, distant, dress uniform, earnest, edificial, elephantine, empty formality, epithetic, established, eucharistic, evening dress, exacting, exercise, exercises, explicit, express, extrinsic, fixed, flatulent, forced, formal dress, formalist, formalistic, formality, formalized, formational, formative, formulaic, formular, formulary, frowning, full dress, function, functional, gallant, gassy, glossematic, graduation, graduation exercises, grammatic, grandiloquent, grave, grim, grim-faced, grim-visaged, guinde, habitual, halting, harmonious, heavy, honorific, hypocoristic, impersonal, in hand, in name only, inaugural, inauguration, inflated, inflexible, initiation, inkhorn, intransitive, knightly, labored, lawful, leaden, legal, legalistic, limited, linking, liturgic, liturgistic, liturgy, long-faced, lumbering, meet, modal, morphological, morphotic, mummery, nominal, nominative, normal, observance, office, official, old-fashioned, old-world, ordered, orderly, organic, organismal, orthodox, ostensible, participial, paschal, pedantic, performance, plastic, pompous, ponderous, pontifical, postpositional, prepositional, prescribed, pretended, prim, pro forma, professed, pronominal, punctilious, purported, quasi, received, recognized, regalia, religious ceremony, reserved, right, rigid, rite, rite de passage, rite of passage, ritual, ritualistic, routine, sacramental, sacramentarian, sedate, seemly, self-called, self-christened, self-important, self-styled, serious, service, sesquipedalian, set, so-called, sober, sober-minded, sobersided, soi-disant, solemnity, solemnization, somber, square, staid, standard, starched, stately, steady, stilted, stone-faced, straight, straight-faced, strait-laced, straitened, strict, structural, stuffy, stylized, substantive, substructural, superficial, superstructural, supposed, surface, swollen, symmetrical, syntactic, systematic, tagmemic, tails, tectonic, textural, thoughtful, titular, traditional, transitive, tumid, turgid, tuxedo, unbending, unchanging, uniform, unsmiling, unwieldy, usual, verbal, weighty, well-ordered, well-regulated, would-be

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