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A formally stated and authoritatively settled doctrine; a definite, established, and authoritative tenet.

The rank or condition of a dowager; formality, as that of a dowager. Also used figuratively. Mansions that have passed away into dowagerism. Thackeray.

An audience hall; the court of a native prince; a state levee; a formal reception of native princes, given by the governor general of India. [India] [Written also darbar.]

Freedom from constraint, formality, difficulty, embarrassment, etc.; facility; liberty; naturalness; -- said of manner, style, etc.; as, ease of style, of behavior, of address. True ease in writing comes from art, not chance. Pope. Whate'er he did was done with so much ease, In him alone 't was natural to please. Dryde…

Freedom from effort, constraint, or formality; -- said of style, manner, etc. With painful care, but seeming easiness. Roscommon.

he like; not anxious; tranquil; as, an easy mind. (c) Free from constraint, harshness, or formality; unconstrained; smooth; as, easy manners; an easy style. "The easy vigor of a line." Pope.

t; to play. I did enact Julius Caesar. Shak. Enacting clause, that clause of a bill which formally expresses the legislative sanction.

ike instrument on parchment. Some period long past, when clerks engrossed their stiff and formal chirography on more substantial materials. Hawthorne. Laws that may be engrossed on a finger nail. De Quincey.

he wants of a guest; especially, provision for the table; a hospitable repast; a feast; a formal or elegant meal. (b) That which engages the attention agreeably, amuses or diverts, whether in private, as by conversation, etc., or in public, by performances of some kind; amusement. Theatrical entertainments conducted wi…

To make a formal statement of; to announce; to proclaim; to declare, as a truth. The terms in which he enunciates the great doctrines of the gospel. Coleridge.

is enunciated or announced; words in which a proposition is expressed; an announcement; a formal declaration; a statement. Every intelligible enunciation must be either true or false. A. Clarke.

or sent to a person or persons; a written communication; a letter; -- applied usually to formal, didactic, or elegant letters. A madman's epistles are no gospels. Shak.

osition treating of any particular subject; -- usually shorter and less methodical than a formal, finished treatise; as, an essay on the life and writings of Homer; an essay on fossils, or on commerce.

A formal eulogy. Smollett.

A formal recital or exposition of facts; exposure, or revelation, of something which some one wished to keep concealed.

Characterized by, or exhibiting, the manner of an intimate friend; not formal; unconstrained; easy; accessible. "In loose, familiar strains." Addison. Be thou familiar, but by no means vulgar. Shak.

An invention; a fiction; something feigned or imagined. Social figments, feints, and formalism. Mrs. Browning. It carried rather an appearance of figment and invention . . . than of truth and reality. Woodward.

dislike; disagreeable; prohibiting or interdicting; as, a forbidding aspect; a forbidding formality; a forbidding air.

nce; empty, outside appearance; vain, trivial, or conventional ceremony; conventionality; formality; as, a matter of mere form. Though well we may not pass upon his life Without the form of justice. Shak.

A written confession of faith; a formal statement of foctrines.