Formula

How to spell formula

7 letters · 3 syllables

How to pronounce formula

Say the part in capitals loudest.

What does formula mean?

1. nounA fixed rule, recipe, or set of symbols expressing a method or relationship.
2. nounA manufactured milk product fed to babies as a substitute for breast milk.

Formula in a sentence

• The spreadsheet uses a formula to total each column automatically.

• They warmed a bottle of formula for the newborn at midnight.

• The company guards the secret formula for its cola.

• The pharmacy ran out of the hypoallergenic formula that the infant needed.

Where does formula come from?

Language of origin: Latin

Formula comes directly from Latin, where it was the diminutive of forma, meaning 'shape', 'pattern', or 'mould'. The little ending -ula gave it the literal sense of 'a small form' or 'a set little pattern', and in Roman usage it referred to a fixed wording, rule, or legal framework that people followed exactly. English adopted the word in the 1600s, at first for a set form of words used in religious or legal settings, and then broadened it to cover any fixed rule, recipe, or symbolic expression. From there it travelled into mathematics and chemistry, where a formula is a concise pattern of symbols, and later into everyday life for things like baby formula and even racing categories such as Formula One. The shared forma root also links it to familiar relatives like 'form', 'format', and 'transform', which is a useful reminder that the word keeps its plain -form- spelling before the ending.

How the word is built

• form (shape, pattern)
• -ula (Latin diminutive suffix)