Microformal
adj ·Uncommon ·Advanced level
Definitions
- 1 Pertaining to the internal structure of a single phrase. not-comparable
"For example, the note values and tonality of a phrase cannot be chosen independently of those of the other phrases; and similar restirctions apply also for many other microformal characteristics."
- 2 Pertaining to the characteristics and patterns of lines or phrases, as opposed to the structure of the entire work. not-comparable
"Other microformal characteristics also mark these traditional, oral tales, such as the absence of the necessary enjambment — the basic element is the line or the hemistich, as also in the romancero -- and what Parry calls the thrift of formulaic art ("each position in the verse tends to allow one way rather than many ways of saying any one thing" if we are speaking of a single bard), a quality also found in Hesiod."
- 3 Involving structure on a localized, small scale. broadly, not-comparable
"Both microformal and mesoformal deformations of the bed are considered in the analytical study."
- 4 Having a miniaturized form. not-comparable
"Respectful of its microformal origins, it is distributed with a microfiche that duplicates the printed version but sometimes contains additional material."
- 5 Involving substances in which extremely small volumes are involved (such as antibiotics, antibodies or viruses). not-comparable
"Hydrolysis of the substrate was measured by a microformal titration, by using 0.05N sodium hydroxide, a manostat microtitrator, and a Beckman Zeromatic pH meter to determine the micromoles of acid liberated in a given time."
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- 6 "Thickened" using formal canonical relations between the cotangent bundles of smooth manifolds. not-comparable
"They act on oscillatory wave functions, whose algebra extends the algebra of formal power series in Planck's constant. In the classical limit, quantum microformal morphisms reproduce, as the main term of the asymptotic, the nonlinear pullbacks of functions with respect to `classical' microformal morphisms."
Example
More examples"For example, the note values and tonality of a phrase cannot be chosen independently of those of the other phrases; and similar restirctions apply also for many other microformal characteristics."
Etymology
From micro- + formal.
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Data sourced from Wiktionary, WordNet, CMU, and other open linguistic databases. Updated March 2026.