- Forming
- Form Form (f[^o]rm), v. t. [imp. & p. p. {Formed} (f[^o]rmd);
p. pr. & vb. n. {Forming}.] [F. former, L. formare, fr.
forma. See {Form}, n.]
1. To give form or shape to; to frame; to construct; to make;
to fashion.
[1913 Webster]
God formed man of the dust of the ground. --Gen. ii. 7. [1913 Webster]
The thought that labors in my forming brain. --Rowe. [1913 Webster]
2. To give a particular shape to; to shape, mold, or fashion into a certain state or condition; to arrange; to adjust; also, to model by instruction and discipline; to mold by influence, etc.; to train. [1913 Webster]
'T is education forms the common mind. --Pope. [1913 Webster]
Thus formed for speed, he challenges the wind. --Dryden. [1913 Webster]
3. To go to make up; to act as constituent of; to be the essential or constitutive elements of; to answer for; to make the shape of; -- said of that out of which anything is formed or constituted, in whole or in part. [1913 Webster]
The diplomatic politicians . . . who formed by far the majority. --Burke. [1913 Webster]
4. To provide with a form, as a hare. See {Form}, n., 9. [1913 Webster]
The melancholy hare is formed in brakes and briers. --Drayton. [1913 Webster]
5. (Gram.) To derive by grammatical rules, as by adding the proper suffixes and affixes. [1913 Webster]
6. (Elec.) To treat (plates) so as to bring them to fit condition for introduction into a storage battery, causing one plate to be composed more or less of spongy lead, and the other of lead peroxide. This was formerly done by repeated slow alternations of the charging current, but now the plates or grids are coated or filled, one with a paste of red lead and the other with litharge, introduced into the cell, and formed by a direct charging current. [Webster 1913 Suppl.]
The Collaborative International Dictionary of English. 2000.
