Forms

Form is a broad term used across disciplines to denote shape, structure, or organization. In everyday use, it describes the external appearance and the arrangement of a thing's parts.

Forms in administration and computing are documents or interfaces that collect information. They specify fields, sequences, and rules for input, and are often submitted for processing or storage.

In art and design, form refers to the visual and tactile qualities of an object—its shape, volume, texture, and color. Form interacts with light and space to determine how a work is perceived.

In philosophy, especially Plato, Forms (or Ideas) are perfect, abstract essences that individual things imitate imperfectly. The Forms are non-material and universal, serving as standards for truth and beauty.

In linguistics, a form is a particular morphophonological variant of a word, reflecting grammatical information such as tense, number, or case. Forms contrast with the lemma or dictionary form.

In mathematics, the term form appears in expressions such as quadratic forms or bilinear forms, where a symmetric or general expression encodes a relation invariant under a class of transformations.

In biology and horticulture, form can designate a phenotypic variant within a species, such as a plant form or subspecific form. The term is sometimes used for ranks below variety and in describing growth habits.