formalism
[fawr-muh-liz-uh m]
- strict adherence to, or observance of, prescribed or traditional forms, as in music, poetry, and art.
- Religion. strong attachment to external forms and observances.
- Ethics. a doctrine that acts are in themselves right or wrong regardless of consequences.
- Logic, Mathematics. a doctrine, which evolved from a proposal of David Hilbert, that mathematics, including the logic used in proofs, can be based on the formal manipulation of symbols without regard to their meaning.
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Origin of formalism
Dictionary.com Unabridged
Based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2018
Related Words
decorumpompprotocolformformalityproprietynicetyprecisenessprescriptionusagestrictnessconformityceremonialpolitenessformalismpolitessecorrectnesspunctiliousnessconventionalismmummeryExamples from the Web for formalism
Contemporary Examples
He was accused of “formalism,” a catch-all accusation that, like “Trotskyite,” had the ring of execution about it.
The concept is that the formalism of past summits has made meaningful conversation difficult.
Historical Examples
Little shades of formalism had crept here and there into her manner, even toward me.
In the ValleyHarold Frederic
There is in them an irreconcilable mixture of fury and formalism.
Modern Painters Volume I (of V)John Ruskin
His sense of formalism had been sloughed off, his agreed-upon reactions bypassed.
WarmRobert Sheckley
Deceit, flattery, formalism in prayer are abominable to God.
Broken BreadThomas Champness
He could never get over the idea that formalism was the soul of function.
The Music MasterCharles Klein
formalism
- scrupulous or excessive adherence to outward form at the expense of inner reality or content
- the mathematical or logical structure of a scientific argument as distinguished from its subject matter
- the notation, and its structure, in which information is expressed
- theatre a stylized mode of production
- (in Marxist criticism) excessive concern with artistic technique at the expense of social values, etc
- the philosophical theory that a mathematical statement has no meaning but that its symbols, regarded as physical objects, exhibit a structure that has useful applicationsCompare logicism, intuitionism
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Collins English Dictionary - Complete & Unabridged 2012 Digital Edition
© William Collins Sons & Co. Ltd. 1979, 1986 © HarperCollins
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Word Origin and History for formalism
Online Etymology Dictionary, © 2010 Douglas Harper