Look up formal in Wiktionary, the free dictionary.

The term formal has a number of uses, including: Wikipedia does not have an article with this exact name. ... It has been suggested that French Wiktionary be merged into this article or section. ...

General

• relating to formality
• opposite of informal

A formality is an established procedure or set of specific behaviors and utterances, conceptually similar to a ritual although typically secular and less involved. ...

Social

• Formal occasion
  • Formal attire worn on such occasions
  • Formals are paticular meals at some British Universities
  • In Australian or British English, a "formal" is the equivalent of the American prom dance.
  • In American English, a "formal" is organized by a college or university organization, typically but not always a fraternity or sorority.
• Informal occasion (included as Informal redirect here); see Dress code (Western) for the distinctions between Formal, Semi-formal, and Informal
  • Informal attire (not to be confused with Casual -- see Dress code (Western))

It has been suggested that this article or section be merged into formal wear. ... Formal wear (more often in the United States) or formal dress (in the United Kingdom) is a general term used to describe mens clothing suitable for formal events, including weddings, debutante balls, etc. ... Formal Hall or Formal Meal is the traditional meal held at some of the older universities in the United Kingdom at which students dress in formal attire and often gowns to dine. ... This article or section does not cite its references or sources. ... The terms fraternity and sorority (from the Latin words and , meaning brother and sister respectively) may be used to describe many social and charitable organizations, for example the Lions Club, Epsilon Sigma Alpha, Delta Sigma Phi, Rotary International, Optimist International, Ordo Templi Orientis or the Shriners. ... In computer science a formal grammar is an abstract structure that describes a formal language precisely, i. ... This article, image, template or category should belong in one or more categories. ... Informal is a dress code in the European tradition. ... This article, image, template or category should belong in one or more categories. ...

Philosophical

• relating to form, i.e. appearance rather than essence.
  • relating to Formalism, i.e. emphasis on form over content or meaning.
• formal logic logical argument based only on the form and not on the meaning.
• Formal Cause Aristotle's intrinsic, determining cause.

Look up form in Wiktionary, the free dictionary. ... The term formalism describes an emphasis on form over content or meaning in the arts, literature, or philosophy. ... Logic (from ancient Greek λόγος (logos), meaning reason) is the study of arguments. ... The Formal Cause, that according to which the statue is made, is the idea existing in the first place as exemplar in the mind of the sculptor, and in the second place as intrinsic, determining cause, embodied in the matter. ...

Mathematics

• formal power series generalization of power series without convergence.
• formal calculation calculation which is systematic, but without a rigorous justification
• formal set theory as opposed to naive set theory
• formal derivative operation on elements of a polynomial ring which mimics the form of the derivative from calculus.

In mathematics, formal power series are devices that make it possible to employ much of the analytical machinery of power series in settings that do not have natural notions of convergence. They are also useful to compactly describe sequences and to find closed formulas for recursively defined sequences; this is... In mathematical logic, a formal calculation is sometimes defined as a calculation which is systematic, but without a rigorous justification. ... Set theory is a branch of mathematics created principally by the German mathematician Georg Cantor at the end of the 19th century. ... In mathematics, the formal derivative is an operation on elements of a polynomial ring which mimics the form of the derivative from calculus. ...

Language

• formal system abstract means of generating inferences in a formal language
  • formal language symolic "words" or "sentences" of a formal system
    • formal grammar describes a formal language

In logic and mathematics, a formal system consists of two components, a formal language plus a set of inference rules or transformation rules. ... In mathematics, logic, and computer science, a formal language is a set of finite-length words (i. ... In computer science and linguistics, a formal grammar, or sometimes simply grammar, is a precise description of a formal language — that is, of a set of strings. ...

Computer Science

• formal methods in computer science, including:
  • formal specification describes what a system should do, not how it should do it
  • formal verification proves correctness of a system

See also the Language section of Mathematics, above In computer science and software engineering, formal methods are mathematically-based techniques for the specification, development and verification of software and hardware systems. ... A formal specification is a mathematical description of software or hardware that may be used to develop an implementation. ... In the context of hardware and software systems, formal verification is the act of proving or disproving the correctness of a system with respect to a certain formal specification or property, using formal methods of mathematics. ...

Linguistic

• Formal Equivalence word-for-word translation (especially of the Bible)

See also the Language section of Mathematics, above Formal equivalence is a translation approach which attempts to retain the language forms of the original as much as possible in the translation, regardless of whether or not they are the most natural way to express the original meaning. ...

Chemical

• A unit of concentration
• short or prefix form for formalin
• short or prefix form for formaldehyde
• synonym for dimethoxymethane

This disambiguation page lists articles associated with the same title. If an internal link led you here, you may wish to change the link to point directly to the intended article.