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formally

[fawr-muh-lee]

Example Sentences Origin

adverb

in a formal manner: The store was formally opened on Tuesday.

as regards form; in form: It may be formally correct, but it is substantively wrong.

Origin:
1350–1400; Middle English. See formal¹, -ly

Can be confused: formally, formerly.

Dictionary.com Unabridged
Based on the Random House Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2012.
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Link To formally

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Formally is always a great word to know.

So is flibbertigibbet. Does it mean:

a gadget; dingus; thingumbob.

a chattering or flighty, light-headed person.

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Example Sentences

Elderly professors should be addressed formally at first encounter.

If all goes to plan, it will be formally launched next month, and could start operating next year.

The officials ruled that the artifacts would remain in the cave until the government formally registered the site.

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Collins

World English Dictionary

formal¹ (ˈfɔːməl)

—*adj*
1.	of, according to, or following established or prescribed forms, conventions, etc: a formal document
2.	characterized by observation of conventional forms of ceremony, behaviour, dress, etc: a formal dinner
3.	methodical, precise, or stiff
4.	suitable for occasions organized according to conventional ceremony: formal dress
5.	denoting or characterized by idiom, vocabulary, etc, used by educated speakers and writers of a language
6.	acquired by study in academic institutions: a formal education
7.	regular or symmetrical in form: a formal garden
8.	of or relating to the appearance, form, etc, of something as distinguished from its substance
9.	logically deductive: formal proof
10.	philosophy
	a. of or relating to form as opposed to matter or content
	b. pertaining to the essence or nature of something: formal cause
	c. (in the writings of Descartes) pertaining to the correspondence between an image or idea and its object
	d. being in the formal mode
11.	denoting a second-person pronoun in some languages used when the addressee is a stranger, social superior, etc: in French the pronoun ``vous'' is formal, while ``tu'' is informal

[C14: from Latin formālis]

'formally¹

—*adv*

'formalness¹

—n

Collins English Dictionary - Complete & Unabridged 10th Edition
2009 © William Collins Sons & Co. Ltd. 1979, 1986 © HarperCollins
Publishers 1998, 2000, 2003, 2005, 2006, 2007, 2009
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Etymonline

Word Origin & History

formally

c.1400, in good form, from formal + -ly (2). Meaning in prescribed or customary form is from 1560s.

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Matching Quote

"I have always taken as the standard of the mode of teaching and writing, not the abstract, particular, professional philosopher, but universal man, that I have regarded man as the criterion of truth, and not this or that founder of a system, and have from the first placed the highest excellence of the philosopher in this, that he abstains, both as a man and as an author, from the ostentation of philosophy, i.e., that he is a philosopher only in reality, not formally, that he is a quiet philosopher, not a loud and still less a brawling one."

-Ludwig Feuerbach

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formally

for·mal·ly