Formal

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General

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

Social

• Formal occasion
• Formal attire worn on such occasions
• Formals
  Formal (university)
  
  Formal Hall or Formal Meal is the traditional meal held at some of the older university in the United Kingdom at which students dress in formal attire and often academic dresss to dine....
   are particular meals at some British universities
• In Australian or British English, a formal
  School Formal
  
  A school formal or formal, is an event held during the school year for students in Australian Education in Australia. Formals are generally organised and run by a student committee which volunteers to do so....
   is the equivalent of the American prom
  Prom
  
  In the United States and Canada, a prom, short for promenade, is a semi-formal dance held at the end of an academic year. In the United Kingdom, the term is more widely understood to be in reference to The Proms or "proms", which have been held between July and September since 1895, today run by the BBC....
   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)
  Dress code (Western)
  
  A dress code is a set of rules governing what garments may be worn together. Examples of dress codes are combinations such as "smart casual", or "morning dress"....
   for the distinctions between Formal, Semi-formal, and Informal
• Informal attire
  Informal attire
  
  Informal is a dress code, typified by a suit and necktie. On the scale of formality, informal attire is more formal than casual but less formal than semi-formal....
   (not to be confused with Casual -- see Dress code (Western)
  Dress code (Western)
  
  A dress code is a set of rules governing what garments may be worn together. Examples of dress codes are combinations such as "smart casual", or "morning dress"....
  )

Philosophical

• relating to form, i.e. appearance rather than essence.
• relating to Formalism
  Formalism
  
  The term formalism describes an emphasis on form over content or meaning in the arts, literature, or philosophy. A practitioner of formalism is called a formalist....
  , 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.

Mathematics

• formal power series
  Formal power series
  
  In mathematics, formal power series are devices that make it possible to employ much of the mathematical analysis machinery of power series in settings that do not have natural notions of Convergent series....
  , a generalization of power series without requiring convergence, used in combinatorics;
• formal calculation
  Formal calculation
  
  In mathematical logic, a formal calculation is sometimes defined as a calculation which is systematic, but without a rigorous justification....
  , a calculation which is systematic, but without a rigorous justification;
• formal set theory as opposed to naive set theory;
• formal derivative
  Formal derivative
  
  In mathematics, the formal derivative is an operation on elements of a polynomial ring or a ring of formal power series which mimics the form of the derivative from derivative....
  , an operation on elements of a polynomial ring which mimics the form of the derivative from calculus.

Logic and Language

• formal system
  Formal system
  
  In logic, a formal system consists of a formal language together with a deductive system which consists of a set of inference rules and/or axioms....
  , an abstract means of generating inferences in a formal language;
• formal language
  Formal language
  
  A formal language is a set of words, i.e. finite string of letters, or symbols. The inventory from which these letters are taken is called the alphabet over which the language is defined....
  , comprising the symbolic "words" or "sentences" of a formal system;
• formal grammar
  Formal grammar
  
  In formal language theory, grammars, also called formal grammars or generative grammars, are a formalism used to describe formal languages – i.e....
  , a grammar describing a formal language;
• formal proof
  Formal proof
  
  A formal proof or derivation is a finite sequence of proposition each of which is an axiom or follows from the preceding sentences in the sequence by a rule of inference....
  , a fully rigorous proof as is possible only in a formal system.

Computer science

• formal methods
  Formal methods
  
  In computer science and software engineering, formal methods are particular kind of mathematically-based techniques for the formal specification, development and formal verification of software and hardware systems....
   in computer science, including:
• formal specification
  Formal specification
  
  In computer science, a formal specification is a mathematics description of software or hardware that may be used to develop an implementation. It describes what the system should do, not how the system should do it....
   describes what a system should do, not how it should do it
• formal verification
  Formal verification
  
  In the context of hardware and software systems, formal verification is the act of Mathematical proof or disproving the correctness of intended algorithms underlying a system with respect to a certain formal specification or property, using formal methods of mathematics....
   proves correctness of a system

Linguistic

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

Chemical

• A unit of concentration
  Concentration
  
  In chemistry, concentration is the measure of how much of a given chemical substance there is mixed with another substance. This can apply to any sort of chemical mixture, but most frequently the concept is limited to homogeneous solutions, where it refers to the amount of solute in the solvent....
  
• short or prefix form for formalin
• short or prefix form for formaldehyde
  Formaldehyde
  
  Formaldehyde is a chemical compound with the chemical formula H2CO. It is the simplest aldehyde. Formaldehyde exists in several forms aside from H2CO: the cyclic trimer trioxane and the polymer Polyoxymethylene....
  
• synonym for dimethoxymethane
  Dimethoxymethane
  
  Dimethoxymethane, also called methylal, is a clear colorless flammable liquid with a low boiling point, low viscosity and an excellent dissolving power....
  

Political Science

• Formal theory refers to mathematical modeling, because otherwise "theory" refers more broadly to political philosophy
  Political philosophy
  
  Political philosophy is the study of questions about the city, government, politics, liberty, justice, property, rights, law and the enforcement of a legal code by authority: what they are, why they are needed, what makes a The purpose of government, what rights and freedoms it should protect and why, what form it should take and why, what t...
  

See also

• Informal economy
  Informal economy
  
  The informal sector is economic activity that is neither taxed nor monitored by a government; and is not included in that government's Gross National Product ; as opposed to a formal economy....