being in accord with established forms and conventions and requirements (as e.g. of formal dress); "pay one's formal respects"; "formal dress"; "a formal ball"; "the requirement was only formal and often ignored"; "a formal education"
(of spoken and written language) adhering to traditional standards of correctness and without casual, contracted, and colloquial forms; "the paper was written in formal English"
logically deductive; "formal proof"
characteristic of or befitting a person in authority; "formal duties"; "an official banquet"
generic name for certain synthetic or semisynthetic materials that can be molded or extruded into objects or films or filaments or used for making e.g. coatings and adhesives
capable of being influenced or formed; "the plastic minds of children"; "a pliant nature"