pro forma
Americanadjective
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according to form; as a matter of form; for the sake of form.
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Commerce. provided in advance of shipment and merely showing the description and quantity of goods shipped without terms of payment.
a pro forma invoice.
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Accounting. indicating hypothetical financial figures based on previous business operations for estimate purposes.
a pro forma balance sheet.
adverb
noun
adjective
adverb
Other Word Forms
Noun Inflected Forms
Etymology
Origin of pro forma
First recorded in 1565–75; from Latin prō formā
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.
The IPO for Applied Aerospace, which is a SpaceX supplier, valued the company at about $3.5 billion, or about six times 2025 pro forma sales of $604 million External link.
From Barron's ● Jun. 3, 2026
The combined entity will have a pro forma market capitalization of about 10.70 billion Australian dollars, equivalent to US$7.67 billion, and annual gold production estimated at more than 700,000 troy ounces, the companies said.
From The Wall Street Journal ● May 5, 2026
On a pro forma basis, excluding the assets it spun off earlier this year into a company called Versant, revenue rose 11%.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Apr. 23, 2026
The deal makes it a much larger company with pro forma sales of $2.7 billion and Ebitda of almost $500 million.
From Barron's ● Apr. 20, 2026
But once again the doom and gloom was mostly pro forma.
From "The Boys in the Boat: Nine Americans and Their Epic Quest for Gold at the 1936 Berlin Olympics" by Daniel James Brown
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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.