Formalizing

Part of speech: verb

Definitions

1. The act of transforming informal practices into official procedures requires the establishment of recognized standards
2. The process of converting casual or unofficial methods into formal ones involves creating established guidelines and regulations
3. To make informal practices official, a process must occur that sets and enforces recognized standards

Etymology: "Formalizing" is the present participle of "formalize", which is built from "formal" plus the suffix "-ize". The suffix has a long route into English: it began in ancient Greek as "-izein", which made verbs expressing the act of doing or making something, and it passed into Latin as "-izare" and then into Old French as "-iser". English borrowed the pattern in Middle English as "-isen", and it later settled into the spelling "-ize" that appears in the verb here. The base word "formal" comes from Latin "formalis", derived from "forma", meaning shape or form. So "formalize" literally means to give something a definite shape or form, and the participle carries that sense into the act of turning loose, informal habits into fixed, recognized procedures.

Synonyms: establishing, officializing