Definition of Form

Form

1. A suffix used to denote in the form / shape of, resembling, etc.; as, valiform; oviform.
2. The shape and structure of anything, as distinguished from the material of which it is composed; particular disposition or arrangement of matter, giving it individuality or distinctive character; configuration; figure; external appearance.
3. Constitution; mode of construction, organization, etc.; system; as, a republican form of government.
4. Established method of expression or practice; fixed way of proceeding; conventional or stated scheme; formula; as, a form of prayer.
5. Show without substance; empty, outside appearance; vain, trivial, or conventional ceremony; conventionality; formality; as, a matter of mere form.
6. Orderly arrangement; shapeliness; also, comeliness; elegance; beauty.
7. A shape; an image; a phantom.
8. That by which shape is given or determined; mold; pattern; model.
9. A long seat; a bench; hence, a rank of students in a school; a class; also, a class or rank in society.
10. The seat or bed of a hare.
11. The type or other matter from which an impression is to be taken, arranged and secured in a chase.
12. The boundary line of a material object. In painting, more generally, the human body.
13. The particular shape or structure of a word or part of speech; as, participial forms; verbal forms.
14. The combination of planes included under a general crystallographic symbol. It is not necessarily a closed solid.
15. That assemblage or disposition of qualities which makes a conception, or that internal constitution which makes an existing thing to be what it is; -- called essential or substantial form, and contradistinguished from matter; hence, active or formative nature; law of being or activity; subjectively viewed, an idea; objectively, a law.
16. Mode of acting or manifestation to the senses, or the intellect; as, water assumes the form of ice or snow. In modern usage, the elements of a conception furnished by the mind's own activity, as contrasted with its object or condition, which is called the matter; subjectively, a mode of apprehension or belief conceived as dependent on the constitution of the mind; objectively, universal and necessary accompaniments or elements of every object known or thought of.
17. The peculiar characteristics of an organism as a type of others; also, the structure of the parts of an animal or plant.
18. To give form or shape to; to frame; to construct; to make; to fashion.
19. To give a particular shape to; to shape, mold, or fashion into a certain state or condition; to arrange; to adjust; also, to model by instruction and discipline; to mold by influence, etc.; to train.
20. To go to make up; to act as constituent of; to be the essential or constitutive elements of; to answer for; to make the shape of; -- said of that out of which anything is formed or constituted, in whole or in part.
21. To provide with a form, as a hare. See Form, n., 9.
22. To derive by grammatical rules, as by adding the proper suffixes and affixes.
23. To take a form, definite shape, or arrangement; as, the infantry should form in column.
24. To run to a form, as a hare.
25. To treat (plates) so as to bring them to fit condition 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 now the plates or grids are 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.