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1. WordNet® 3.0 (2006)
formal
    adj 1: 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" [ant: informal]
    2: characteristic of or befitting a person in authority; "formal
       duties"; "an official banquet"
    3: (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"
       [ant: informal]
    4: represented in simplified or symbolic form [syn:
       conventional, formal, schematic]
    5: logically deductive; "formal proof"
    6: refined or imposing in manner or appearance; befitting a
       royal court; "a courtly gentleman" [syn: courtly, formal,
       stately]
    n 1: a lavish dance requiring formal attire [syn: ball,
         formal]
    2: a gown for evening wear [syn: dinner dress, dinner gown,
       formal, evening gown]

2. The Collaborative International Dictionary of English v.0.48
Formal \For"mal\ (f[^o]r"mal), n. [L. formic + alcohol.] (Chem.)
   See Methylal.

3. The Collaborative International Dictionary of English v.0.48
Formal \Form"al\ (f[^o]rm"al), a. [L. formalis: cf. F. formel.]
   1. Belonging to the form, shape, frame, external appearance,
      or organization of a thing.
      [1913 Webster]

   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.
      [1913 Webster]

            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.
      [1913 Webster]

   3. Done in due form, or with solemnity; according to regular
      method; not incidental, sudden or irregular; express; as,
      he gave his formal consent.
      [1913 Webster]

            His obscure funeral . . .
            No noble rite nor formal ostentation. --Shak.
      [1913 Webster]

   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.
      [1913 Webster]

            A cold-looking, formal garden, cut into angles and
            rhomboids.                            --W. Irwing.
      [1913 Webster]

            She took off the formal cap that confined her hair.
                                                  --Hawthorne.
      [1913 Webster]

   5. Having the form or appearance without the substance or
      essence; external; as, formal duty; formal worship; formal
      courtesy, etc.
      [1913 Webster]

   6. Dependent in form; conventional.
      [1913 Webster]

            Still in constraint your suffering sex remains,
            Or bound in formal or in real chains. --Pope.
      [1913 Webster]

   7. Sound; normal. [Obs.]
      [1913 Webster]

            To make of him a formal man again.    --Shak.
      [1913 Webster]

   Formal cause. See under Cause.

   Syn: Precise; punctilious; stiff; starched; affected; ritual;
        ceremonial; external; outward.

   Usage: Formal, Ceremonious. When applied to things, these
          words usually denote a mere accordance with the rules
          of form or ceremony; as, to make a formal call; to
          take a ceremonious leave. When applied to a person or
          his manners, they are used in a bad sense; a person
          being called formal who shapes himself too much by
          some pattern or set form, and ceremonious when he lays
          too much stress on the conventional laws of social
          intercourse. Formal manners render a man stiff or
          ridiculous; a ceremonious carriage puts a stop to the
          ease and freedom of social intercourse.
          [1913 Webster]

4. The Collaborative International Dictionary of English v.0.48
Methylal \Meth"yl*al\, n. [Methylene + alcohol.] (Chem.)
   A light, volatile liquid, H2C(OCH3)2, regarded as a complex
   ether, and having a pleasant ethereal odor. It is obtained by
   the partial oxidation of methyl alcohol. Called also
   formal.
   [1913 Webster]

5. The Free On-line Dictionary of Computing (30 December 2018)
FORMAL

   1. 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.  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)].

   (1994-12-06)


Thesaurus Results for formal:

1. Moby Thesaurus II by Grady Ward, 1.0
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, ceremonious, ceremony, chivalric, chivalrous, cognominal, comme il faut, commencement, conditional, confining, conformable, conjunctive, constructional, conventional, conventionalized, convocation, copulative, correct, courtly, cramped, cumbrous, customary, de rigueur, decent, decorous, definite, demure, dignified, diminutive, distant, dress uniform, earnest, edificial, elephantine, empty formality, epithetic, established, eucharistic, evening dress, exact, 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, methodical, modal, morphological, morphotic, mummery, nominal, nominative, normal, observance, office, official, old-fashioned, old-world, ordered, orderly, organic, organismal, orthodox, ostensible, outward, participial, paschal, pedantic, performance, plastic, pompous, ponderous, pontifical, postpositional, precise, prepositional, prescribed, pretended, prim, pro forma, professed, pronominal, proper, punctilious, purported, quasi, received, recognized, regalia, regular, 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, solemn, solemnity, solemnization, somber, square, staid, standard, starched, stately, steady, stiff, 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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