For*mal"i*ty (?), n.; pl.
Formalities (#). [Cf. F. formalité.]
1. The condition or quality of being formal,
strictly ceremonious, precise, etc.
2. Form without substance.
Such [books] as are mere pieces of formality,
so that if you look on them, you look though them.
Fuller.
3. Compliance with formal or conventional
rules; ceremony; conventionality.
Nor was his attendance on divine offices a matter of
formality and custom, but of conscience.
Atterbury.
4. An established order; conventional rule of
procedure; usual method; habitual mode.
He was installed with all the usual
formalities.
C. Middleton.
5. pl. The dress prescribed for any
body of men, academical, municipal, or sacerdotal. [Obs.]
The doctors attending her in their formalities
as far as Shotover.
Fuller.
6. That which is formal; the formal
part.
It unties the inward knot of marriage, . . . while it
aims to keep fast the outward formality.
Milton.
7. The quality which makes a thing what it
is; essence.
The material part of the evil came from our father
upon us, but the formality of it, the sting and the curse, is
only by ourselves.
Jer. Taylor.
The formality of the vow lies in the promise
made to God.
Bp. Stillingfleet.
8. (Scholastic. Philos.) The manner in
which a thing is conceived or constituted by an act of human
thinking; the result of such an act; as, animality and rationality
are formalities.
