Form v. t. [imp. & p. p. Formed p. pr. & vb. n. Forming.]
1. To give form or shape to; to frame; to construct; to make; to fashion.
God formed man of the dust of the ground. --Gen. ii. 7.
The thought that labors in my forming brain. --Rowe.
2. To give a particular shape to; to shape, mold, or fashion into a certain state or condition; to arrange; to adjust; also, to model by instruction and discipline; to mold by influence, etc.; to train.
'T is education forms the common mind. --Pope.
Thus formed for speed, he challenges the wind. --Dryden.
3. To go to make up; to act as constituent of; to be the essential or constitutive elements of; to answer for; to make the shape of; -- said of that out of which anything is formed or constituted, in whole or in part.
The diplomatic politicians . . . who formed by far the majority. --Burke.
4. To provide with a form, as a hare. See Form, n., 9.
The melancholy hare is formed in brakes and briers. --Drayton.
5. Gram. To derive by grammatical rules, as by adding the proper suffixes and affixes.
6. Elec. To treat (plates) so as to bring them to fit condition for introduction into a storage battery, causing one plate to be composed more or less of spongy lead, and the other of lead peroxide. This was formerly done by repeated slow alternations of the charging current, but now the plates or grids are coated or filled, one with a paste of red lead and the other with litharge, introduced into the cell, and formed by a direct charging current.
Form·ing n. The act or process of giving form or shape to anything; as, in shipbuilding, the exact shaping of partially shaped timbers.