formful
Language: English
Part of speech: adj
Forms: form: more formful
form: most formful
Etymology: From form + -ful.
Senses: examples: text: As fleets the vision o'er the formful brain
ref: a. 1749 (date written), James Thomson, “Summer”, in The Seasons, London: […] A[ndrew] Millar, and sold by Thomas Cadell, […], published 1768, →OCLC:
text: 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.
ref: 1794, Aaron Hill, “Bellaria At Her Spinet”, in The Works of the British Poets:
glosses: creative; imaginative;
examples: text: 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.
ref: 1999, William P. Brown, The Ethos of the Cosmos: The Genesis of Moral Imagination in the Bible:
text: How one can say that - God is only formful.
ref: 2002, Braja Dulal Mookherjee, The Essence of Bhagavad Gita, page 299:
text: Out of the formless the formful has come into being.
ref: 2014, The Complete Works of Swami Ramakrishnananda:
glosses: Not formless; having a form; substantive.
examples: text: 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.
ref: 1992, Ronald Larsen, A Potter's Companion: Imagination, Originality, and Craft, page 32:
text: 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.
ref: 2011, Jonathan Swift, Gulliver's Travels and Other Writings, page 1:
text: 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.
ref: 2012, L. Aschenbrenner, The Concept of Coherence in Art, page 7:
glosses: Well formed; aesthetically pleasing and skillfully constructed.
examples: text: The number of winning favorites is one of the best indications of formful racing.
ref: 1948, Biennial Report of the Kentucky State Racing Commission, page 13:
text: 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.
ref: 1976, Scholastic Coach, volume 46, page 98:
text: If your finish position is sound, balanced, and formful, then the mechanics necessary to give you that result had to occur!
ref: 1993, Larry Miller, Holographic Golf: Uniting the Mind and Body to Improve Your Game:
glosses: Exhibiting proper and skillful performance; well-executed.
Derived terms: formfulness