format

American  

[fawr-mat] / ˈfɔr mæt /

noun

• formats
  plural

1. 

   the shape and size of a book as determined by the number of times the original sheet has been folded to form the leaves.

2. the general physical appearance of a book, magazine, or newspaper, such as the typeface, binding, quality of paper, margins, etc.

3. the organization, plan, style, or type of something.

   The format of the show allowed for topical and controversial gags.

4. Computers. the arrangement of data for computer input or output, such as the number and size of fields in a record or the spacing and punctuation of information in a report.

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verb (used with object)

• formats,
  present (3rd person singular)
• formatted,
  past participle,  past
• formatting
  present participle

1. to plan or provide a format for.

   to format the annual telethon.

2. Computers.

   1. to set the format of (input or output).

      Some word-processing programs format output in a variety of ways.

   2. to prepare (a disk) for writing and reading.

verb (used without object)

• formats,
  present (3rd person singular)
• formatted,
  past participle,  past
• formatting
  present participle

1. to devise a format.

format British  

/ ˈfɔːmæt /

noun

1. the general appearance of a publication, including type style, paper, binding, etc

2. an approximate indication of the size of a publication as determined by the number of times the original sheet of paper is folded to make a leaf See also duodecimo quarto

3. style, plan, or arrangement, as of a television programme

4. computing

   1. the defined arrangement of data encoded in a file or for example on magnetic disk or CD-ROM, essential for the correct recording and recovery of data on different devices

   2. the arrangement of text on printed output or a display screen, or a coded description of such an arrangement

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verb

1. to arrange (a book, page, etc) into a specified format

format Scientific  

/ fôr′măt′ /

1. The arrangement of data for storage or display.

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1. To divide a disk into marked sectors so that it may store data.

2. To determine the arrangement of data for storage or display.

Other Word Forms

Derived Forms

• formatter
  noun
• reformat
  verb
• preformat
  verb (used with object)

Inflected Forms

Nouns

• formats
  plural

Participles

• formatting
  present
• formatted
  past

Conjugated Forms

Present

• format
  simple
• formats
  simple
• have formatted
  perfect
• has formatted
  perfect
• am formatting
  progressive
• are formatting
  progressive
• is formatting
  progressive
• have been formatting
  perfect progressive
• has been formatting
  perfect progressive

Past

• formatted
  simple
• had formatted
  perfect
• was formatting
  progressive
• were formatting
  progressive
• had been formatting
  perfect progressive

Future

• will format
  simple
• will have formatted
  perfect
• will be formatting
  progressive
• will have been formatting
  perfect progressive

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Etymology

Origin of format

First recorded in 1830–40; from French, from Latin (liber) fōrmātus “(book) shaped (in a specified way)”; see formation ( def. )

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Explanation

In saving a new electronic document, you must choose a format, for instance PDF, Word doc, or XML, which dictates how the information is to be organized, displayed, and manipulated. To format information is to arrange it according to preexisting parameters. Electronic files require a format or, more commonly, a "file type," so computers will know how to open, read, and change them. Entertainment media are delivered in such varied formats as VHS, CD, DVD, MP3, and MOV. In the world of AM/FM radio, format is the type of music a station plays, such as top-40, urban, dance, or country.

Example Sentences

See Examples For:

format formats formatted formatting

Ronald D. Moore will receive it for his role in adapting the story from Diana Gabaldon's original novels into the TV format.

From BBC ● Nov. 2, 2026

Single-narrator audiobooks remain the preferred format overall, but for Maas fans that’s hardly the point.

From The Wall Street Journal ● Oct. 26, 2026

Matches are played in an eight-a-side format, on smaller pitches, with 20-minute halves.

From BBC ● Oct. 26, 2026

At a later press conference, Baron Cohen -- as himself -- defended satire as the quintessential format for "shining a light on, maybe, subjects that we haven't really discussed as a society before."

From Barron's ● Oct. 23, 2026

The Distracter showed that no single segment of the Sesame Street format should go beyond four minutes, and that three minutes was probably optimal.

From "The Tipping Point" by Malcolm Gladwell

As the channel marks its 20th anniversary, it is set to bring back some of its freestyle formats in the hope of discovering a new generation of rappers.

From BBC ● Nov. 2, 2026

Google has been experimenting with different ad formats within AI surfaces, Flax told MarketWatch, and he believes the company will be able to effectively monetize those conversational queries in the long term.

From MarketWatch ● Oct. 31, 2026

The credits for the album list sources including four-track and eight-track analog tapes, as well as multiple digital audio formats.

From The Wall Street Journal ● Oct. 27, 2026

This has since been demonstrated a thousand times over, and much show business brain power has been dedicated to thinking up new ways to dress a handful of basic formats.

From Los Angeles Times ● Oct. 21, 2026

Romeo and Juliet’s agonising predicament acts like wallpaper to nineteenth-century music: almost wherever you look it is lurking in the background, provoking decade-by-decade settings of many shapes, sizes and formats.

From "The Story of Music" by Howard Goodall

"AI thrives on recognising patterns. And legal citations and arguments are always formatted in the same way, so it's easy for an AI to follow a template and generate fake ones," said Charlotin.

From Barron's ● Jun. 15, 2026

However, Wells participated in a CBP webinar last week, so she knew how to create a properly formatted file herself, and quickly made her submission on Monday morning.

From MarketWatch ● Apr. 20, 2026

Kaufman Lynn, a Florida-based construction firm, built an agent using Procore’s technology that pulls data from nearly a dozen different tools and automatically creates a formatted monthly progress report.

From The Wall Street Journal ● Jan. 27, 2026

The letters poured in and Baxter set up a complicated card index system so children would get personal replies rather than a formatted letter.

From BBC ● Aug. 11, 2025

“Yeah. I like how you’ve formatted your skill set.”

From "Landscape with Invisible Hand" by M.T. Anderson

While both phones and laptops now have high-quality cameras, the formatting is a dead giveaway that you’re not on a laptop, says Melissa Marcus, a career coach who worked as a recruiter for 20 years.

From MarketWatch ● Jul. 21, 2026

Voice writers repeat every word spoken in court along with a sequence of formatting commands to voice recognition software.

From Los Angeles Times ● Jul. 6, 2026

Some journals are experimenting with artificial intelligence to screen submissions or flag common problems, like issues with document formatting.

From Slate ● May 3, 2026

My house is filled to overflowing with clothes I will never wear, books I will never read and pocket-size external hard drives I will never get around to formatting.

From The Wall Street Journal ● Nov. 28, 2025

While I was formatting the text from earlier—the one for Another Rachel—a new submission popped up.

From "Bye Forever, I Guess" by Jodi Meadows

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Related Words

• arrangement
• composition
• configuration
• form
• layout
• organization
• pattern
• plan
• scheme
• setup
• shape
• size
• style

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