Form

How to spell form

4 letters · 1 syllable

How to pronounce form

What does form mean?

1. nounThe visible shape, structure, or configuration of something.
2. nounA printed or digital document with blank spaces for information to be entered.
3. verbTo bring something into existence, shape it, or arrange it.
4. nounA class or year group of pupils in a British school.

Form in a sentence

• noun

  The sculpture took the form of a coiled spring.

• noun

  Please complete the application form in black ink.

• verb

  The partners decided to form a new company together.

• noun

  He teaches geography to the lower sixth form.

• noun

  Water can exist in liquid, solid, and gaseous form.

• noun

  The tax form asks for last year's income.

Where does form come from?

Language of origin: Latin

The word comes from the Latin forma, which meant a shape, a mould, or a pattern, and also a beautiful appearance. Latin used it both for the physical outline of a thing and for the model or template from which copies were made, a sense that survives whenever we talk about filling in a printed form. English took the word in during the 1200s through Old French forme, where it covered shape, manner, and proper procedure. Over the centuries the single short word branched into many uses: the visible shape of an object, a document with blanks to complete, the verb meaning to bring something into being, and in British schools a class or year group. The same forma root still lies behind a large family of relatives such as formal, format, uniform, transform, and reform, so the spelling, which has no hidden letters, simply preserves the compact Latin core.

How the word is built

• form (from Latin forma: shape, mould, pattern)