Upon them the light-armed forlorn hope [qui primi agminis erant] of archers and darters of the Roman host, which went before the battle to skirmish, charged forcibly with their shot.—Id., ib. p. 641; cf. pp. 1149, 1150, 1195.
Christ’s descent into hell was not ad prædicandum, to preach; useless, where his auditory was all the forlorn hope.—Fuller, Worthies of England: Hampshire.
| Formal, | } |
| Formally, | |
| Formality. |
It has been observed already, s. v. ‘Common Sense,’ that a vast number of our words have descended to us from abstruse sciences and speculations, we accepting them often in a total unconsciousness of the quarter from which they came. Another proof of this assertion is here; only, as it was metaphysics there, it is logic here which has given us the word. It is curious to trace the steps by which ‘formality,’ which meant in the language of the Schools the essentiality, the innermost heart of a thing, that which gave it its form and shape, the ‘forma formans,’ should now mean something not merely so different, but so opposite.
Be patient; for I will not let him stir,
Till I have used the approved means I have,
With wholesome syrups, drugs, and holy prayers
To make of him a formal man again.
Shakespeare, Comedy of Errors, act v. sc. 1.
Next day we behold our bride a formal wife.—Fuller, Of the Clothes and Ornaments of the Jews, § 6.