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Glite Dictionary
well-formed

well-formed

3 4.4
Correct according to grammar and normal language use
  • adjective
  • /wɛl fɔrmd/
  • Specialized
translation icon : bien formado
  • The professor explained how a well-formed sentence follows grammatical rules.
  • a well-formed document
  • well-formed XML

And in order to make good predictions, yeah, your model has to be, it has to be coherent, it has to be strong, has to be well formed.

Examples

  • And again, we now see a really well formed galactic structure emerging.

  • My thoughts on the subject are not as well-formed or well-articulated as yours.

    Blog text (27)

  • And once it's well formed enough, then we'll kind of start talking about it.

  • So again, this is a well formed equation or well formed symbol.

  • In the example shown here, the input string on the top is well formed, but the input string on the bottom is not.

  • Test your salesOrder.xsl file to make sure it is well-formed by opening it in your web browser.

    Academic text (2004)

  • Written on school notepaper, the handwriting is careful and well-formed, in keeping with community preferences.

    Academic text (1992)

  • What is critical for the present results, however, is that both monolingual and bilingual speakers produced similarly well-formed trochaic sequences.

    Academic text (2011)

  • The well-formed fibrous capsule of a schwannoma is an important morphologic feature.

    Academic text (2005)

  • They’re just well-formed molecules.

    Shallow Hal (2001)

Synonyms

grammatical
vswell-formed
18 3.0

Following the rules for making correct sentences

allows correctness by rules or also by common accepted usage

Antonyms

ill-formed
  • Specialized
1 7.2

Does not follow the rules of grammar

How Grammatical

well-formed
  • Specialized
3 4.4
acceptable
477 2.5

Surface Forms

well-formed positive

Morphology

well-formed = formed (transparent) = well + form + ed

The adjective is straightforwardly built from 'well' + 'form' (+ -ed as the participial/adjectival marker), so its meaning is directly inferable: formed in a good or correct way. [Postprocessing: moved 'well' from base_words to prefix]

Etymology

Well-formed comes from well meaning 'in a good way' and form meaning 'shape' or 'structure'. So a well-formed sentence is 'well' + 'formed', made in the right shape and following the rules.