Dictionary

formful en · ADJ · etymology 1

Etymology

From form + -ful.

Meanings

1. (obsolete) creative; imaginative;
   • Fearless, with face oblique, her formful hand Flies o'er the ivory Plain, with stretch'd command; Plunges, with bold neglect, amidst the keys, And sweeps the sounding range with magic east. 1794, Aaron Hill, “Bellaria At Her Spinet”, in The Works of the British Poets:
   • As fleets the vision o'er the formful brain a. 1749 (date written), James Thomson, “Summer”, in The Seasons, London: […] A[ndrew] Millar, and sold by Thomas Cadell, […], published 1768, →OCLC:
2. Not formless; having a form; substantive.
   • Creation is at root a process of rendering formful and substantial ("filled") what was originally amorphous and empty, of establishing domains and their appropriate populace. 1999, William P. Brown, The Ethos of the Cosmos: The Genesis of Moral Imagination in the Bible:
   • How one can say that - God is only formful. 2002, Braja Dulal Mookherjee, The Essence of Bhagavad Gita, page 299:
   • Out of the formless the formful has come into being. 2014, The Complete Works of Swami Ramakrishnananda:
3. Well formed; aesthetically pleasing and skillfully constructed.
   • We are all often indignant, and sometimes witty about our indignations, but we do not thereby turn satirists. For it is not only the anger and the involvement, the idealism and the wit, but the manipulations of them, how they are turned to formful, organic use that constitute the satric art. 2011, Jonathan Swift, Gulliver's Travels and Other Writings, page 1:
   • If we must guard against the notions of form, coherence or justifying too narrowly, in terms of what is generally praised as “harmony” and “balance,” we must equally avoid interpreting them so broadly that everything whatever is “formful” simply because it has parts in relation to one another. 2012, L. Aschenbrenner, The Concept of Coherence in Art, page 7:
   • Potters are craftworkers; that is, they use their hands to make objects for everyday use that need to have form and design as an integral part of their being. To be able to do this potters need a certain ability, not only of the hands (as most might think) but especially a capacity to see what is formful, beautiful, characteristic and so on. 1992, Ronald Larsen, A Potter's Companion: Imagination, Originality, and Craft, page 32:
4. Exhibiting proper and skillful performance; well-executed.
   • The number of winning favorites is one of the best indications of formful racing. 1948, Biennial Report of the Kentucky State Racing Commission, page 13:
   • Pitchers: Grip, receiving signals on mound, working with a wind-up, working from stretch position, formful delivery and follow through, holding runner close, strategy, working on control by pitching through the strings. 1976, Scholastic Coach, volume 46, page 98:
   • If your finish position is sound, balanced, and formful, then the mechanics necessary to give you that result had to occur! 1993, Larry Miller, Holographic Golf: Uniting the Mind and Body to Improve Your Game:

Forms

Deriveds

formfulness

formful en · NOUN · etymology 2

Etymology

From form + -ful.

Meanings

1. The amount that makes up a form (any sense).
   • This fits in with Hudson's (1966) observation that 'a knowledge of a boy's IQ is of little help if you are faced with a formful of clever boys' (p. 127), and with the idea that personality and motivational factors may well be more important than cognitive abilities in promoting real-life creativity. 1986, David J. Hargreaves, The Developmental Psychology of Music, page 169:
   • Pausing under a tree, picking and sniffing through the Gravensteins, yellow skins splashed with magenta drip, firm formfuls of breathtaking smells, a dull thud draws me to the next. 2008, Nomi Rowe, In Celebration of Cecil Collins: Visionary Artist and Educator, page 74:
   • For this reason, it is important to score the center rod with marks at four-inch intervals to that Slip Form walls will progress upward uniformly, coinciding with the structure's various floor levels and window sill heights; that is, so that floors and sills will be level with layers of wall, dispensing with the need to cast half a formful of mortar to make up for any difference in levels of the various building components. 1984, The Green Revolution - Volumes 41-46:
   • In order to keep themselves awake, each formful of people appoints a watchman — (and they take this office in turns each hour' throughout the night), — whose duty it is, with a small stick, if necessary, to give a smart rap to the poor exhausted creature who may be dozing off to sleep. 1846, Thomas Campbell Foster, Letters on the Condition of the People of Ireland, page 83:

Forms