- Formalities
- Formality For*mal"i*ty, n.; pl. {Formalities}. [Cf. F.
formalit['e].]
1. The condition or quality of being formal, strictly
ceremonious, precise, etc.
[1913 Webster]
2. Form without substance. [1913 Webster]
Such [books] as are mere pieces of formality, so that if you look on them, you look though them. --Fuller. [1913 Webster]
3. Compliance with formal or conventional rules; ceremony; conventionality. [1913 Webster]
Nor was his attendance on divine offices a matter of formality and custom, but of conscience. --Atterbury. [1913 Webster]
4. An established order; conventional rule of procedure; usual method; habitual mode. [1913 Webster]
He was installed with all the usual formalities. --C. Middleton. [1913 Webster]
5. pl. The dress prescribed for any body of men, academical, municipal, or sacerdotal. [Obs.] [1913 Webster]
The doctors attending her in their formalities as far as Shotover. --Fuller. [1913 Webster]
6. That which is formal; the formal part. [1913 Webster]
It unties the inward knot of marriage, . . . while it aims to keep fast the outward formality. --Milton. [1913 Webster]
7. The quality which makes a thing what it is; essence. [1913 Webster]
The material part of the evil came from our father upon us, but the formality of it, the sting and the curse, is only by ourselves. --Jer. Taylor. [1913 Webster]
The formality of the vow lies in the promise made to God. --Bp. Stillingfleet. [1913 Webster]
8. (Scholastic. Philos.) The manner in which a thing is conceived or constituted by an act of human thinking; the result of such an act; as, animality and rationality are formalities. [1913 Webster]
The Collaborative International Dictionary of English. 2000.
