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formation.

The act of assembling a group or structure.

9 characters3 syllables approx.English language

Meaning & usage

noun/fɔːˈmeɪʃ(ə)n/Received-Pronunciation/fɔɹˈmeɪʃ(ə)n/Canada, General-American/foːˈmæɪʃ(ə)n/Australia, New-Zealand
  1. The act of assembling a group or structure.

    countable · uncountable
  2. Something possessing structure or form.

    countable · uncountable
  3. The process during which something comes into being and gains its characteristics.

    countable · uncountable
  4. A grouping of military units or smaller formations under a command, such as a brigade, division, wing, etc.

    countable · uncountable
  5. A layer of rock of common origin.

    countable · uncountable
  6. An arrangement of moving troops, ships, or aircraft, such as a wedge, line abreast, or echelon. Often "in formation".

    countable · uncountable
  7. An arrangement of players designed to facilitate certain plays.

    countable · uncountable
  8. The process of influencing or guiding a person to a deeper understanding of a particular vocation.

    countable · uncountable
  9. A structure made of two categories, two functors from the first to the second category, and a transformation from one of the functors to the other.

    countable · uncountable
Where this word comes from

From Middle English formacioun, formation, borrowed from Old French formacion, from Latin fōrmātiō, from fōrmō (“form”, verb); see form as verb. Morphologically form + -ation.

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Definitions, grammatical labels, IPA, etymology and examples: Wiktionary contributors, extracted by Kaikki / Wiktextract. Adapted under CC BY-SA 4.0. Selected fields and authored examples are shown; third-party quotations and audio are omitted. See contributor history.

Last enriched 2026-09-10. Definitions are in English. Romanizations are shown when supplied by the source; syllable estimates are omitted for unsupported scripts.