form

noun26

1. •
   the shape of someone or something, or the way they look from the outside

   • 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
2. •
   A blank document or template to be filled in by the user.

   • To apply for the position, complete the application form.
3. •
   A window or dialogue box.

   • Throughout this chapter we will work with a form in a new project. — 2010
4. •
   The boundary line of a material object. In painting, more generally, the human body.
5. •
   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
6. •
   Level of performance.

   • The team's form has been poor this year.
   • The orchestra was on top form this evening.
7. •
   Constitution; mode of construction, organization, etc.; system.
8. •
   An order of doing things, as in religious ritual.
9. •
   Established method of expression or practice; fixed way of proceeding; conventional or stated scheme; formula.

   • Those whom form of laws Condemned to die. — 1697
10. •
    (UK) A class or year of school pupils.
11. •
    (UK) 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
12. •
    (UK) Past history (in a given area); a habit of doing something.

    • 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
13. •
    A specific way of performing a movement.
14. •
    Show without substance; empty, outside appearance; vain, trivial, or conventional ceremony; conventionality; formality.

    • Though well we may not pass upon his life Without the form of justice. — 1603
15. •
    Regularity, beauty, or elegance.
16. •
    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.
17. •
    Characteristics not involving atomic components.
18. •
    A specimen document to be copied or imitated.
19. •
    A thing that gives shape to other things as in a mold.
20. •
    An infraspecific rank.
21. •
    A quantic.
22. •
    The combination of planes included under a general crystallographic symbol. It is not necessarily a closed solid.
23. •
    (historical) 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
24. •
    (old-fashioned) A long bench with no back.
25. •
    The den or home of a hare.

    • Being one day a hunting, I found a Hare sitting in her forme[…]. — 1603
26. •
    (no longer used) A class or rank in society.

verb9

1. •
   To give (a shape or visible structure) to a thing or person.

   • Roll out the dough to form a thin sheet.
2. •
   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.
3. •
   To create (a word) by inflection or derivation.

   • By adding "-ness", you can form a noun from an adjective.
4. •
   To constitute, to compose, to make up.

   • Teenagers form the bulk of extreme traffic offenders.
5. •
   To assume (a certain shape or visible structure).

   • When you kids form a straight line I'll hand out the lollies.
6. •
   To take shape.

   • When icicles start to form on the eaves you know the roads will be icy.
7. •
   To mould or model by instruction or discipline.

   • Singing in a choir helps to form a child's sociality.
8. •
   To provide (a hare) with a form.

   • The melancholy hare is formed in brakes and briers. — 1612
9. •
   (historical) 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.

noun1

1. •
   Acronym of family, occupation, recreation, motivation, a set of potential topics of conversation for use by salespeople etc.