INFORMAL

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 Dictionary entry overview: What does informal mean? 

• INFORMAL (adjective)
  The adjective INFORMAL has 4 senses:

1. not formal

2. not officially recognized or controlled

3. used of spoken and written language

4. having or fostering a warm or friendly and informal atmosphere

  Familiarity information: INFORMAL used as an adjective is uncommon.

 Dictionary entry details 

• INFORMAL (adjective)

Sense 1

Meaning:

Not formal

Context example:

an informal gathering of friends

Similar:

casual; daily; everyday (appropriate for ordinary or routine occasions)

casual; free-and-easy (natural and unstudied)

folksy (very informal and familiar)

unceremonial; unceremonious (without ceremony or formality)

Also:

informal (used of spoken and written language)

Attribute:

formality; formalness (a manner that strictly observes all forms and ceremonies)

Antonym:

formal (being in accord with established forms and conventions and requirements (as e.g. of formal dress))

Derivation:

informality (freedom from constraint or embarrassment)

Sense 2

Meaning:

Not officially recognized or controlled

Synonyms:

informal; loose

Context example:

a loose organization of the local farmers

Similar:

unofficial (not having official authority or sanction)

Sense 3

Meaning:

Used of spoken and written language

Similar:

colloquial; conversational (characteristic of informal spoken language or conversation)

nonliterary; unliterary (marked by lack of affectation or pedantry)

subliterary (not written as or intended to be literature)

slangy (constituting or expressed in slang or given to the use of slang)

epistolary; epistolatory (written in the form of or carried on by letters or correspondence)

common; vernacular; vulgar (being or characteristic of or appropriate to everyday language)

Also:

informal (not formal)

unrhetorical (not rhetorical)

Attribute:

formality; formalness (a manner that strictly observes all forms and ceremonies)

Antonym:

formal ((of spoken and written language) adhering to traditional standards of correctness and without casual, contracted, and colloquial forms)

Sense 4

Meaning:

Having or fostering a warm or friendly and informal atmosphere

Synonyms:

cozy; informal; intimate

Context example:

the small room was cozy and intimate

Similar:

friendly (characteristic of or befitting a friend)

Derivation:

informality (a manner that does not take forms and ceremonies seriously)

 Context examples 

An informal grouping of rna-containing viruses that are capable of inducing tumors.

(Oncornavirus, NCI Thesaurus)

An informal term specifying an organization or person.

(Party, NCI Thesaurus)

Down they went, feeling a trifle timid, for they seldom went to parties, and informal as this little gathering was, it was an event to them.

(Little Women, by Louisa May Alcott)

Informal term for the generation of a mutant mouse in which the function of a particular gene has been completely eliminated, also called a null mouse.

(Knock-Out Mouse, NCI Thesaurus)

Something that may serve as the basis of further growth or development; an informal term for a bacterium.

(Germ, NCI Thesaurus)

You will excuse this informal reception in the open air, but my friend Watson and I have nearly furnished an additional chapter to what the papers call the Cornish Horror, and we prefer a clear atmosphere for the present.

(His Last Bow, by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle)

A group formed in 1993 by four academic groups on a collaborative basis after informal discussions led to a common vision of how to achieve an important goal in the study of the human genome: the Integrated Molecular Analysis of Genomes and their Expression.

(Integrated Molecular Analysis of Genomes and their Expression Consortium, NCI Thesaurus)