[f. as prec. + -ING2.] a. That forms; formative, creative. b. That is in process of being formed.
a. 1644. Digby, Nat. Bodies (1645), I. 289. To effect this worke of generation, there needeth not be supposed a forming virtue or Vis formatrix of an unknown power and operation.
1701. Rowe, Amb. Step-Moth., I. i.
| The thought that labours in my forming brain, | |
| Yet crude and immature, demands more time. |
1711. Steele, Spect., No. 167, 11 Sept., ¶ 3. It would be difficult to enumerate what August Palaces and Stately Proticoes have grown under my forming Imagination.
1739. G. Ogle, Gualth. & Gris., 37.
| Who (still improv’d beneath their forming hands) | |
| At once their love and their respect commands. |
b. 1805. Rec. Greenhead United Presbyt. Ch. Glasgow. To be taken under their consideration as a forming congregation.
1875. Whitney, Life Lang., v. 96. The construction was in a forming and doubtful state in our earliest English, and who and which won their relative force only considerably later.
