amorphous
/əˈmɔːfəs
/adjective
1Without a clearly defined shape or form: an amorphous, characterless conurbation...
- Stretched along the umbrella's base, a large, pale gray, amorphous shape could be a shadow, a sack or a lifeless body.
- Elsewhere, amorphous biological shapes remind you of transplant organs on life-support machines, or the literal ‘test-tube’ babies.
- Her third work, a video performance, depicts him performing as an old man, whittling an amorphous shape.
Synonyms
shapeless, formless, unformed, unshaped, structureless, unstructured, indeterminate, indefinite, vague, nebulous
1.1Lacking a clear structure or focus: an amorphous and leaderless legislature...
- While this gives much-needed structure to the seemingly amorphous mass that was the British empire, it does require some patience to keep aloft the various intellectual spheres juggled by the author.
- Generally, when people describe systemic sexism, they refer to an amorphous, unspoken structure in the workplace and an old boys' club dominating the corporate world.
- Some of my favorite albums in recent memory used exotic instruments, indecipherable lyrics, and amorphous structures to create a sublime aura of the unreal.
1.2 Mineralogy & Chemistry (Of a solid) not crystalline, or not apparently crystalline: an amorphous polymer...
- Consequently, the formerly crystalline solid becomes amorphous.
- If the solution is cooled quickly, the molecules are frozen where they are, forming a glass-like amorphous solid.
- Silica exists in several crystalline forms, in a large number of colloidal forms, and as an amorphous solid.
Derivatives
amorphously
- Since the counter-cultural 1960s, the amorphously named postmodern dance has gone through at least three distinct phases and now probably doesn't exist at all except in replay.
- A few watercolour-drawings are definitely erotic, but they're amorphously erotic.
- I think that the use of the word ‘pagan’ to amorphously and collectively describe the various pre-Christian beliefs and religions of Europe is really dubious, especially when it occurs in television documentaries like this.
amorphousness
- I, unlike a lot of academics, am not bothered by the amorphousness and vagueness of spirituality.
- In actual fact, what we have here are irremediably sick and futureless mass-men, whose ideal is amorphousness, whose ethos is formlessness and who hate nothing so much as discipline, form, definition.
- However, the author argues that the informality and amorphousness of these networks makes it difficult to account for, and engage with, the formal (centralised and institutional) aspects of politics.
Origin
Mid 18th century: from modern Latin amorphus, from Greek amorphos 'shapeless' (from a- 'without' + morphē 'form') + -ous.