formal cause
formal cause noun: the design, pattern, or pure concept of a thing, which gives form or structure to its matter.
Noun
formal cause (plural formal causes)
- The design, pattern, or pure concept of a thing, which gives form or structure to its matter.
- In the production of a statue of Athena for the Parthenon, the bronze is the material cause; the shape and design of the statue is the formal cause; the sculptor is the efficient cause; the honor of the goddess (and the glory of Athens) is the final cause.1998, R. J. Schork, Greek and Hellenic Culture in Joyce, →ISBN, page 176
Forms of formal cause
| plural | formal causes |
|---|
Questions about formal cause
- What does formal cause mean?
- Formal cause means the design, pattern, or pure concept of a thing, which gives form or structure to its matter.
- What part of speech is formal cause?
- Formal cause is a noun.
- What is the plural of formal cause?
- The plural of formal cause is formal causes.
Words near formal cause in the dictionary
Source and license
Adapted from Wiktionary: formal cause (page history and authors). Text available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 license. Word.ws reformatted the entry and added links. Wiktionary data of 2026-09-02.
Last updated:
Cite this entry: “formal cause.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/formal_cause. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.