formal

Meanings

• a lavish dance requiring formal attire
• a gown for evening wear
• being in accord with established forms and conventions and requirements (as e.g. of formal dress)
  • "pay one's formal respects"
  • "formal dress"
  • "a formal ball"
  • "the requirement was only formal and often ignored"
  • "a formal education"
• characteristic of or befitting a person in authority
  • "formal duties"
• (of spoken and written language) adhering to traditional standards of correctness and without casual, contracted, and colloquial forms
  • "the paper was written in formal English"
• represented in simplified or symbolic form
• logically deductive
  • "formal proof"
• refined or imposing in manner or appearance; befitting a royal court

Synonyms

ball, conventional, courtly, dinner dress, dinner gown, evening gown, schematic, stately