ill-formed
Americanadjective
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badly formed.
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Linguistics. not conforming to the rules of a given language; ungrammatical (opposed to well-formed).
Other Word Forms
Etymology
Origin of ill-formed
First recorded in 1665–75
Example Sentences
Examples are provided to illustrate real-world usage of words in context. Any opinions expressed do not reflect the views of Dictionary.com.
In that role, "The View" is channeling large swaths of the public's thoughts, intuitions and moods – however vague and ill-formed those thoughts and feelings may be.
From Salon ● Mar. 24, 2023
We’ve learned a lot in a quarter century — none of which appears to be present in the editorial board’s thinking or legislators’ ill-formed bills.
From Seattle Times ● Jan. 27, 2023
It’s that Chazelle, a director of impressive chops and a writer of often hasty, ill-formed ideas, isn’t strong enough to make those movies breathe as one.
From Los Angeles Times ● Dec. 20, 2022
Horgan: Owen Flanagan told me that philosophers are “more ill-formed than your average person.”
From Scientific American ● Jul. 6, 2020
In effect, the political institutions and the very authority of the federal government were too new and ill-formed to cope effectively with the foreign and domestic challenges facing the new nation.
From "Founding Brothers: The Revolutionary Generation" by Joseph J. Ellis
Definitions and idiom definitions from Dictionary.com Unabridged, based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2023
Idioms from The American Heritage® Idioms Dictionary copyright © 2002, 2001, 1995 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company.
