form

To assume (a certain shape or visible structure).

Noun

To do with shape.
- Study gives strength to the mind; conversation, grace: the first apt to give stiffness, the other suppleness: one gives substance and form to the statue, the other polishes it. - 1699, William Temple, Heads designed for...
- The desert storm was riding in its strength; the travellers lay beneath the mastery of the fell simoom.[…]Roaring, leaping, pouncing, the tempest raged about the wanderers, drowning and blotting out their forms with...
- As towns continue to grow, replanting vegetation has become a form of urban utopia and green roofs are spreading fast. Last year 1m square metres of plant-covered roofing was built in France, as much as in the US, and...
1. The shape or visible structure of a thing or person.
2. A thing that gives shape to other things as in a mold.
3. Regularity, beauty, or elegance.
4. (philosophy) The inherent nature of an object; that which the mind itself contributes as the condition of knowing; that in which the essence of a thing consists.
5. Characteristics not involving atomic components.
6. (dated) A long bench with no back.
  - And there with syr Launcelot wrapped his mantel aboute his arme wel and surely and by thenne they had geten a grete fourme oute of the halle and there with all they rasshed at the dore […]. - 1485, Thomas Malory, Le...
  - In the hall. One large table, with frame. 10s. ij cobbordes 8s. j fourme, j chaire, and j kenninge measure, 12d. - 1585–1586 January 18, chapter LXIII, in [William Greenwell], editor, Wills and Inventories from the...
  - I can see the old schoolroom yet: the broken-down desks and the worn-out forms with knots in that got stuck into your backside[…]. - 1981, GB Edwards, The Book of Ebenezer Le Page, New York, published 2007, page 10:
7. (fine arts) The boundary line of a material object. In painting, more generally, the human body.
8. (crystallography) The combination of planes included under a general crystallographic symbol. It is not necessarily a closed solid.
To do with structure or procedure.
1. An order of doing things, as in religious ritual.
2. Established method of expression or practice; fixed way of proceeding; conventional or stated scheme; formula.
  - Those whom form of laws Condemned to die. - 1697, Virgil, “(please specify the book number)”, in John Dryden, transl., The Works of Virgil: Containing His Pastorals, Georgics, and Æneis. […], London: […] Jacob Tonson,...
  - [H]e sprang into the road, without previously going through the empty form of advising the driver of his intention, to pick [his hat] up. - 1897, Richard Marsh, The Beetle:
3. Constitution; mode of construction, organization, etc.; system.
  - a republican form of government
4. Show without substance; empty, outside appearance; vain, trivial, or conventional ceremony; conventionality; formality.
  - a matter of mere form
  - Though well we may not pass upon his life Without the form of justice. - c. 1603–1606, William Shakespeare, “The Tragedie of King Lear”, in Mr. William Shakespeares Comedies, Histories, & Tragedies […] (First Folio),...
5. (archaic) A class or rank in society.
  - ladies of a high form - a. 1716 (date written), [Gilbert] Burnet, edited by [Gilbert Burnet Jr.], Bishop Burnet’s History of His Own Time. […], volume (please specify |volume=I or II), London: […] Thomas Ward […],...
6. (UK) Past history (in a given area); a habit of doing something.
  - It's fair to say she has form on this: she has criticised David Cameron's proposal to create all-women shortlists for prospective MPs, tried to ban women wearing high heels at work as the resulting pain made them take...
  - As for the notion that it’s not how Sunak would have won, that doesn’t mean a whole lot coming from a guy whose recent form includes losing to Liz Truss. - 2023 July 4, Marina Hyde, “Who’s for political Bazball with...
7. Level of performance.
  - The team's form has been poor this year.
  - The orchestra was on top form this evening.
8. (UK, education) A class or year of school pupils.
9. (UK, education, dated) A numbered division grouping school students (usually every two years) in education between Years 1 and 13 (often preceded by an ordinal number to specify the form, as in sixth form).
  - Nathaniel: Maister, there is nobody to teach in the sixth form. Maister: What a thing is this? N: He is sick in bed. M: How do you know? N: One of the scholars in his house told me so. - 1653, Corderius, Colloquia...
  - I am a very weak, insufficient scholar, sitting on the lowest form in Thy great school-house, which is the whole world, and trying to spell out the mere letters of Thy alphabet […] - 1880, Charles Kingsley, Out of the...
  - One other day after afternoon school, Mr. Percival came behind me and put his hand on me. "Let me see, what's your name? Which form are you in?[…]" - 1928, George Bickerstaff, The mayor, and other folk:
A blank document or template to be filled in by the user.
- To apply for the position, complete the application form.
A specimen document to be copied or imitated.
A grouping of words which maintain grammatical context in different usages; the particular shape or structure of a word or part of speech.
- participial forms; verb forms
The den or home of a hare.
- Being one day a hunting, I found a Hare sitting in her forme[…]. - 1603, Michel de Montaigne, chapter 29, in John Florio, transl., The Essayes […], book II, London: […] Val[entine] Simmes for Edward Blount […], →OCLC:
- The Egyptians therefore in their hieroglyphics expressed a melancholy man by a hare sitting in her form, as being a most timorous and solitary creature. - , I.iii.1.2
- Hares left their snug ‘forms’ in the cold grass. - 1974, Lawrence Durrell, Monsieur, Faber & Faber, published 1992, page 275:
A window or dialogue box.
- While it is quite amazing how much one can do with Visual Basic with the code attached to a single form, to take full advantage of VB you'll need to start using multiple forms and having the code on all the forms in...
- Throughout this chapter we will work with a form in a new project. - 2010, Neil Smyth, C# Essentials:
An infraspecific rank.
The type or other matter from which an impression is to be taken, arranged and secured in a chase.
- And the form is inked, the paper is applied, the bed is slid, and the platen is levered down and the proof is printed. - 2010, Andrea Levy, The Long Song, Tinder Press (2017), page 382:
A quantic.
A specific way of performing a movement.

Origin

From Middle English forme (“shape, figure, manner, bench, frame, seat, condition, agreement, etc.”), borrowed from Old French forme, from Latin fōrma (“shape, figure, image, outline, plan, mold, frame, case, etc., manner, sort, kind, etc.”). In sense "division grouping school students" (now dated), derived from public school nomenclature later adopted by state schools. It is sometimes said to be from the sense of "bench", where students of certain ages would sit together, though this is disputed, or alternatively from the sense of "established method of expression or practice".

Verb

To assume (a certain shape or visible structure).
- When you kids form a straight line I'll hand out the lollies.
- Earless ghost swift moths become “invisible” to echolocating bats by forming mating clusters close (less than half a meter) above vegetation and effectively blending into the clutter of echoes that the bat receives from...
To give (a shape or visible structure) to a thing or person.
- Roll out the dough to form a thin sheet.
To take shape.
- When icicles start to form on the eaves you know the roads will be icy.
- As we age, the major arteries of our bodies frequently become thickened with plaque, a fatty material with an oatmeal-like consistency that builds up along the inner lining of blood vessels. The reason plaque forms...
To put together or bring into being; assemble.
- The socialists did not have enough MPs to form a government.
- Paul McCartney and John Lennon formed The Beatles in Liverpool in 1960.
To create (a word) by inflection or derivation.
- By adding "-ness", you can form a noun from an adjective.
To constitute, to compose, to make up.
- Teenagers form the bulk of extreme traffic offenders.
- the diplomatic politicians[…]who formed by far the majority - 1795–1797, Edmund Burke, “(please specify |letter=1 to 4)”, in [Letters on a Regicide Peace], London: [Rivington]:
- But then I had the [massive] flintlock by me for protection. ¶[…]The linen-press and a chest on the top of it formed, however, a very good gun-carriage; and, thus mounted, aim could be taken out of the window at the old...
To mould or model by instruction or discipline.
- Singing in a choir helps to form a child's sociality.
- 1731–1735, Alexander Pope, Moral Essays 'Tis education forms the common mind.
- Thus formed for speed, he challenges the wind. - 1697, Virgil, “The Fourth Book of the Georgics”, in John Dryden, transl., The Works of Virgil: Containing His Pastorals, Georgics, and Æneis. […], London: […] Jacob...
To provide (a hare) with a form.
- The melancholy hare is formed in brakes and briers. - 1612, Michael Drayton, chapter 2, in [John Selden], editor, Poly-Olbion. Or A Chorographicall Description of Tracts, Riuers, Mountaines, Forests, and Other Parts of...
- This is the time that the horseman are flung out, not having the cry to lead them to the death. When quadruped animals of the venery or hunting kind are at rest, the stag is said to be harboured, the buck lodged, the...
To treat (plates) to prepare them 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 later the plates or grids were 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.