well-formedadj.
/ˌwɛlˈfɔːmd/, U.S. /ˌwɛlˈfɔrmd/ 1. Of a person, animal, or material thing: having a pleasing form; attractively or correctly proportioned or shaped.
ΘΚΠ
the mind > goodness and badness > quality of being good > [adjective]
goodOE
winlyOE
snella1000
winc1275
boonc1325
cleana1375
tidya1375
positivea1398
comelyc1400
kindc1400
kindly?a1425
well-formeda1425
trim?a1513
wally?a1513
bonnya1525
delicatea1533
goodlike1562
sappy1563
bein1567
rum1567
benedict1576
warrantable1581
true (also good, sure) as touch1590
goodlisomea1603
respectable1603
clever1738
amusing1753
plummy1787
bone1793
brickish1843
mooi1850
ryebuck1859
spandy1868
greatisha1871
healthy1878
popular1884
beefy1903
onkus1910
quies1919
cushty1929
high-powered1969
not shabby1975
the mind > attention and judgement > beauty > beauty of shape or form > [adjective]
(fair) of flesh and fellc1000
sittinga1300
well-sittinga1300
well-shapedc1300
lealc1350
well-shapenc1380
shapelya1382
well-formeda1425
well-moulded1616
shapeful1621
clever1674
shapeable1719
formful1798
a1425 (?a1400) G. Chaucer Romaunt Rose (Hunterian) (1891) l. 1189 Wel fourmed was hir face and cleere.
a1500 Partenay (Trin. Cambr.) 1263 (MED) The seffe child Fromont..Inly wel formed, pulcrious of face.
1532 W. Walter tr. G. Boccaccio Guystarde & Sygysmonde sig. A.iij Of shape and persone she was well fourmed.
a1586 Sir P. Sidney Arcadia (1593) iii. sig. Ii5 The kissing of her welformed mouth.
1645 E. Waller Palamede to Zelinde in Poems 1 Fairest piece of well form'd earth, Vrge not thus your haughty Birth.
1653 R. Saunders Physiognomie ii. 159 The well formed head is like a Mallet or a Sphear.
1788 A. Hughes Henry & Isabella II. xviii. 88 Not a pleasing view,..or a well-formed tree, was passed without furnishing matter for her observation.
1793 G. Washington Let. 24 Feb. in Papers (2005) Presidential Ser. XII. 214 If a well formed, & good blooded horse of proper age & size could be had reasonably, I would buy him.
1831 G. P. R. James Philip Augustus I. iv. 65 A man of thirty-two or thirty-three years of age, tall, well-formed, handsome.
1850 W. Wordsworth Prelude vii. 179 A range Of well-formed characters, with chalk inscribed Upon the smooth flat stones.
1915 Amer. Jrnl. Internat. Law 9 190 A highly joyous individual, with..a strong, quick and well-formed body, immune to disease.
2000 C. D. Whiteman Mountain Meteorol. v. 68 (caption) A well-formed snow pillow is seen in the lee of the fence.
2.
a. Of an immaterial thing: fully or satisfactorily formed.
ΘΚΠ
the world > action or operation > ability > skill or skilfulness > [adjective] > having practical, operative, or constructive skill > skilfully made or wrought > specifically of immaterial things
well-wrought?c1335
well-formed1493
1493 Tretyse of Loue (de Worde) sig. Gijv/1 Some there be that haue their helth & wel formed & resonable vnderstondyng.
1533 T. More Answere Poysened Bk. i. xi. f. xliv Eche of you that haue vse of reason after thanalogye and proporcyon of the well formed fayth.
1597 H. Lok Ecclesiastes xii. 109 In which [cheekes] well formed words should fashion haue.
1643 J. Dorney (title) A briefe and exact Relation of..Passages that hapned in the late well-formed (and as valiently defended) Seige laid before the City of Glocester.
1665 N. Hodges Vindiciæ Medicinæ & Medicorum i. 7 Well formed Aphorisms drawn immediatly from sensible observation.
1746 P. Francis tr. Horace Art of Poetry 230 The Child, who now with firmer Footing walks, And with unfaultering, well-form'd Accents talks.
1759 O. Goldsmith Enq. Present State Polite Learning xiii. 192 In a well formed education, a course of history should ever precede a course of ethics.
1829 Amer. Q. Rev. Dec. 325 The pure language, and the well-formed periods of this writer, will offer but few difficulties.
1858 S. P. Day Juvenile Crime ii. 44 The..power and agility of the child are made to subserve their well-formed schemes of booty.
1907 School Rev. 15 17 There are three things necessary for the conduct of an experiment..: a well-formed plan, a competent experimenter, and a careful test of results.
1992 Palm Beach (Florida) Post (Nexis) 25 July 21 a Their [sc. young voters'] attachments are weaker and their habits are not well formed.
2000 Daily Tel. (Nexis) 3 Nov. 35 The reason why you might have got a sense of denial was that it was not a well-formed idea in July.
b. Logic. Designating a sequence of symbols that conforms to the formation rules of a logical system. Frequently in well-formed formula.
ΘΚΠ
the mind > mental capacity > philosophy > logic > predicate or propositional logic > [adjective] > well-formed
well-formed1932
the mind > mental capacity > philosophy > logic > predicate or propositional logic > [noun] > well-formed formula
wff1944
well-formed formula1954
1932 Ann. Math. 33 352 A formula is said to be well formed if it is a variable.
1954 I. M. Copi Symbolic Logic vi. 184 In a logistic system..any formulas which on the intended interpretation do not become significant statements are not well formed formulas.
1978 A. G. Hamilton Logic for Mathematicians iii. 53 The use of parentheses in well-formed formulas is precisely given in the definition.
1996 S. Blackburn Oxf. Dict. Philos. 265/1 A well-formed formula of the propositional calculus is in conjunctive normal form.
c. Linguistics and Philosophy. Formed according to the rules, esp. the syntactic rules, of a natural language.
ΘΚΠ
the mind > language > linguistics > study of grammar > [adjective] > conforming to rules of grammar
truthable1592
grammatical1752
well-formed1946
1946 Philos. Sci. 13 263 It [sc. a statement] must be what logicians call a well-formed sentence according to the (syntactical) rules of that logic which..is in fact the logic of the language that we all speak about the world.
1961 Proc. Symposia Appl. Math. 12 104 One important common problem is that of obtaining an algorithm for distinguishing sentences from nonsentences or..well-formed strings from not well-formed strings.
1980 Amer. Speech 55 90 ‘Le crabmeat cocktail’ is well-formed in that cocktail has been borrowed into French as a masculine noun.
1997 J. Rubach in I. Roca Derivations & Constraints in Phonology xviii. 568 Note: kt- and gd- are well-formed onsets in Polish.
2009 Linguistics & Philos. 32 556 Is being a syntactically well-formed sentence a sufficient condition for meaningfulness?
d. Computing. Of a computer program, or a specific markup language: adhering to a defined syntax.
ΚΠ
1961 Proc. National Symp. Machine Trans. 1960 365 All the well-formed subroutines of a program could be found at a single pass through a compiler, even though the program as a whole might not be well-formed.
1986 W. L. Johnson Intention-based Diagnosis Novice Programming Errors i. 1 Compilers can detect whether or not a computer program is syntactically well-formed without any knowledge about the purpose of the program.
1998 Information Standards Q. Oct. 59 A valid XML document is one that is well formed, has a DTD, and parses against its DTD.
2012 Guardian (Nexis) 27 June 36 Conversations about ‘big data’..often get highly technical: ‘People start saying “well-formed XML” and “Hadoop”, like those are words that are meant to mean something to normal human beings.’
This entry has been updated (OED Third Edition, December 2014; most recently modified version published online June 2022).
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adj.a1425