formation
(fɔːˈmeɪʃən)
[ad. L. formātiōn-em, n. of action f. form-āre to form: see -ation.]
1. a. The action or process of forming; a putting or coming into form; creation, production.
| c 1450 Chester Pl. (Shaks. Soc.) I. 10 The worlde..I forme in the formacion With a dongion of darcknes. 1480 Caxton Chron. Eng. cclvii, Aboute this tyme there was a great formation of monasteries. 1530 Palsgr. 12 The rules that I shall gyve for the formation of tenses. 1656 Cowley Davideis iv. note xxvi, The Formation of the Body in the Womb. 1707 Curios. in Husb. & Gard. 315 The Formation of Barnacles is exactly the same. 1830 D'Israeli Chas. I, III. iv. 43 The complete formation of this administration was interrupted by the death of the Earl. 1853 W. Gregory Inorg. Chem. (ed. 3) 52 The escape of hydrogen and the formation of a neutral salt. 1863 Geo. Eliot Romola i. xi, His mind had really reached a new stage in its formation of a purpose. |
b. Electr. The action or process of forming an accumulator plate, a semiconductor device, etc. (see form v. 1 g).
| 1881 S. P. Thompson Storage Electr. 12/1 The amount of charge will..depend on the size of the plates and on the degree to which the process of ‘formation’ has been carried out. 1926 L. B. W. Jolley A.C. Rectification (ed. 2) xv. 372 During the process of formation the oxide film is being deposited on the anode. 1964 G. Smith Storage Batteries ii. 22 A forming agent is added to the sulphuric acid, which..accelerates the production of the lead dioxide coating when current is passed through the plate during formation. |
2. concr. The thing formed.
| 1646 Sir T. Browne Pseud. Ep. iii. vi. 117 The Chorion, a thick..membrane obscuring the formation, and which the Dam doth teare asunder. 1800 Med. Jrnl. III. 501 Productive of some disgusting formation in their children. 1872 Morris Eng. Accid. xviii. 234 Modern formations are numerous, as acquittal [etc.]. |
3. a. The manner in which a thing is formed with respect to the disposition of its parts; formal structure, conformation.
| 1774 Goldsm. Nat. Hist. (1776) II. 324 These holes are dug with so much art, that there seems the design of an architect in the formation. 1808 Med. Jrnl. XIX. 325 Remarks..as to the formation of clouds. 1845 Budd Dis. Liver 253 The liver..varies much in size, in different persons..from mere peculiarities of formation. 1867 Smyth Sailor's Word-bk., Formation..the particulars of a ship's build. |
b. The disposition of fibres in a sheet of paper.
| 1937 E. J. Labarre Dict. Paper 110/1 Formation, the disposition or texture of the fibres in a sheet of paper. 1952 J. P. Casey Pulp & Paper I. viii. 417 Formation..is a highly important property and influences many of the properties of the final paper, such as strength and appearance. 1953 J. N. Stephenson Pulp & Paper Manuf. III. 119 Formation is that quality which describes the structure of a sheet of paper, the manner in which the fibers are interlaced. |
4. a. Mil. An arrangement or disposition of troops.
| 1796–7 Instr. & Reg. Cavalry (1813) 98 The formation becomes the same as to the front. 1802 in C. James Milit. Dict. 1832 Regul. Instr. Cavalry ii. 20 The..Formations must be executed as often by the left as by the right. 1879 Froude Caesar xxii. 388 The usual Roman formation in battle was in triple line. |
b. Aeronaut. The orderly disposition of a number of aircraft in flight.
| 1914 Engineering 4 Dec. 680/3 Formation Flying... In the handling of a single squadron, the formation adopted may evidently be fairly elastic. 1917 ‘Contact’ Airman's Outings p. xiv, Dotted everywhere, singly or in formations of two, three, four, or six, were..the single-seater fighting scouts. 1931 H. A. Jones War in Air III. iv. 296 They were made to..practise..flying in formation. 1941 E. C. Shepherd Military Aeroplane 4 Anti-aircraft fire can..break up the formations. 1963 Amer. Speech XXXVIII. 117 The bomber then comes slowly up behind the tanker and flies a close formation with it. 1971 D. N. James Gloster Aircraft 211 Three Gladiators of No. 87 Squadron flew tied-together formation aerobatic sequences with cord connecting their interplane struts. |
5. a. Geol. (See quots.)
| 1815 W. Phillips Outl. Min. & Geol. (1818) 88 The term formation is not always used to express a deposite consisting only of a single stratum..it is also commonly used to designate a series of..strata, which being intimately associated, and containing the same description of organic remains, are thence..considered to be of contemporaneous formation. 1833 Lyell Elem. Geol. i. (1874) 4 The term ‘formation’..expresses..any assemblage of rocks which have some character in common, whether of origin, age, or composition. 1881 Nature XXIV. 14 The formation, by which, adopting a terminology now in much favour on the Continent, we mean the lithological character and origin of the rock. |
b. Ecol. [a. G. formation (A. Grisebach 1838, in Linnaea XII. 160).] A community formed by groups of plants which have adapted themselves to similar climatic conditions.
| 1898 Bot. Gaz. XXV. 394 The grass formations are more or less intermediate between the sand hill and the foothill formations. 1909 Groom & Balfour tr. Warming's Oecology of Plants xxxv. 140 A formation may then be defined as a community of species,..which have become associated together by definite external..characters of the habitat. 1929 Weaver & Clements Plant Ecol. i. 6 No formation is uniform throughout its entire extent. 1960 N. Polunin Introd. Plant Geogr. xi. 333 Each formation usually covers a wide area involving various conditions. |
6. attrib., as formation-stage; formation dancing, a variety of (competitive) ballroom dancing in which members of a team dance in formation through a sequence of routines; formation-level (see quot.); formation-rule Logic, one of a set of rules together specifying which combinations of symbols are to count as well-formed formulas in a given system (opp. transformation rule).
| 1936 Dancing Times Aug. 515/2 There was also a very fine demonstration of Mrs. Ripman's ‘Formation Dancing’ in Valse and Fox-trot. 1967 Silvester & Whitman Compl. Old Time Dancer 137 Some competitors have found that experience of formation dancing has helped them in various ways. 1985 Financial Times (Weekend Suppl.) 10 Aug. p. i/3 Walking back along the promenade I looked through a window—to watch a group of elderly ladies doing formation dancing in the front room of a private hotel. 1888 Lockwood's Dict. Mech. Engin., Formation Level, the level of the tops of the embankments and bottoms of the cuttings of a railway upon which the ballast is laid. 1937 A. Smeaton tr. Carnap's Logical Syntax Lang. §1. 2 The difference between syntactical rules in the narrower sense and the logical rules of deduction is only the difference between formation rules and transformation rules. 1948 H. Reichenbach Elem. Symb. Logic i. 16 Formation rules..tell us under what conditions a set of signs is meaningful. 1965 P. Caws Philos. of Sci. xvi. 119 Formation-rules..specify how primitive or other terms may be put together to form acceptable expressions. 1966 Amer. Philos. Q. III. 7/1 Speech activities..proceed in accordance with formation rules. 1892 Gladstone in Daily News 8 Sept. 3/1 In the formation stage of its existence. |
¶ = information.
| c 1470 Henry Wallace v. 977 Pardown he ast off the repreiff befor; and said, he suld no mor Formacioune [ed. 1570 Information] mak off him that was so gud. |
Hence forˈmational a. [see -al1], of or pertaining to formation or formations; forˈmationally adv., in respect of formation, as regards formation.
| 1886 Amer. Jrnl. Sc. Ser. iii. XXXII. 244 Formational and historical geology. 1898 Bot. Gaz. XXV. 382 The forests of Mexico..are both floristically and formationally distinct from the northern forests. 1953 C. E. Bazell Linguistic Form 51 Phonemically the form [wished] is on a par with the formationally underivable fist, etc. |