formality

Etymology

It is borrowed from Medieval Latin fōrmālitās,^[2][3][4] from fōrmālis (“formal”),^[2][5] partly also borrowed from Middle French formalité, recorded in French from 1497.^{[2][3][4][6][5][7]} Etymonline also allows formation in English from formal and -ity.^[8]

Earliest recorded meaning

Literary or artistic form, agreement with the laws of form: 1531, in Thomas Elyot's The Boke Named The Gouernour, a sense lost by 1677.^[2][3] Merriam-Webster's first date is 1570, for the obsolete sense "essential nature".^[6] Etymonline dates the word to the 1530s, as "agreement as to form".^[8]

Semantic evolution

The early senses came from scholastic philosophy and the arts: the formal or essential nature of a thing (1570–1737), its outward form or semblance, and method or regularity.^[2][6] The sense "conformity to established rule, propriety", often disparaging for rigid observance of forms, appears in Hooker in 1597,^[2][8] and formality as ceremony or elaborate procedure in Pepys in 1666.^[2] From 1664 a formality was also something done only for form's sake, a requirement of custom or etiquette,^[2][8] the sense behind a mere formality.^[4] Johnson (1755) defined it first as "ceremony; established mode of behaviour".^[7] From 1578 the word was also used for robes or insignia of office, a sense now only historical.^[2]

Timeline

• 1531 – literary or artistic form (obsolete by 1677).^[2]
• 1570 – formal or essential nature (obsolete by 1737).^[2][6]
• 1578 – robes or insignia of office.^[2]
• 1597 – conformity to rule; rigid observance of forms.^[2][8]
• 1660 – accordance with legal form.^[2]
• 1664 – something done for form's sake.^[2][8]
• 1666 – ceremony, elaborate procedure.^[2]
• 1674 – a formal act or customary procedure.^[2]

Meanings

Noun

1. The quality of being formal; stiff or careful observance of rules, conventions or etiquette: the formality of a state banquet.^[9][6][4]
2. Something done only to comply with a rule, custom or regulation: the customs check was a formality.^[9][4][2]
3. formalities: the procedures required by law or custom.^[4][2]
4. Accordance with legal form.^[2][6]
5. (archaic) The quality that makes a thing what it is; essence.^[6][2]

Related words

• formal
• form
• formalism

References

1. ^ Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l m n o p q r s t u Oxford English Dictionary Online (accessed March 2026), Oxford: Oxford University Press
3. ^ a b c Shorter Oxford English Dictionary on Historical Principles (2002), 5th ed., ed. William R. Trumble and Angus Stevenson, Oxford: Oxford University Press
4. ^ a b c d e f Stevenson, Angus, ed. (2010), Oxford Dictionary of English, 3rd ed., Oxford: Oxford University Press
5. ^ a b Klein, Ernest. A Comprehensive Etymological Dictionary of the English Language. 2 vols. Amsterdam: Elsevier, 1966–1967.
6. ^ a b c d e f g Merriam-Webster Unabridged Dictionary (2024), online ed., Springfield, Mass.: Merriam-Webster
7. ^ a b Johnson, Samuel (1755), A Dictionary of the English Language, London; 4th ed. 1773; Johnson's Dictionary Online, ed. Beth Rapp Young et al.
8. ^ a b c d e f Harper, Douglas. Online Etymology Dictionary, https://www.etymonline.com
9. ^ a b The American Heritage Dictionary of the English Language (online 2024), 5th ed., Boston: Houghton Mifflin Harcourt