subs. (turf).—1. Condition; training; fitness for a contest. IN or OUT OF FORM = in or out of condition, i.e., fit or unfit for work. BETTER or TOP FORM, etc. (in comparison). Cf., COLOUR.
1861. J. H. WALSH, The Horse, ch. vi. If it be supposed that two three-year-olds, carrying the same weight, could run a mile-and-a-half, and come in abreast, it is said that ‘the FORM’ of one is equal to that of the other.
1884. HAWLEY SMART, From Post to Finish, ch. xxxv. When fillies, in racing parlance, lose their FORM at three years old, they are apt to never recover it.
1868. WHYTE-MELVILLE, The White Rose, ch. xxxiv. That mysterious property racing men call FORM.
2. (colloquial).—Behaviour (with a moral significance: as GOOD FORM, BAD FORM = agreeable to good manners, breeding, principles, taste, etc., or the opposite). This usage, popularised in racing circles, is good literary English, though the word is commonly printed in inverted commas (“ ”): SHAKESPEARE (Two Gentlemen of Verona, 4), says, ‘Can no way change you to a milder FORM,’ i.e., manner of behaviour.
1871. Orchestra, 13 Jan. This squabble at the Globe may most fitly, perhaps, be characterised by the words ‘BAD FORM.’
1871. The Drawing Room Gazette, Dec. 9, p. 5. It is an open question, whether snubbing be not, like cutting, in the worst possible ‘FORM.’
1873. Belgravia, Feb., 511. The demeanour and conduct which the ‘golden youth’ of the period call GOOD FORM was known to their fathers as bad manners.
1881. PAYN, A Grape from a Thorn, ch. xvii. It would be considered what they call ‘BAD FORM’ in my daughter Ella if she were known to be a contributor—for pay—to the columns of a magazine.
1890. Speaker, 22 Feb., p. 211, col. 2. Still, after all, we doubt very much whether it be fair, or right, or even prudent—it certainly is not ‘GOOD FORM’—to publish to a world of Gallios a lot of irreverent bar-mess and circuit ‘good stories,’ worked up about living Lord Chancellors, Lord Justices, and other present occupants of the judicial bench.
3. (common).—Habit; GAME (q.v.): e.g., ‘That’s my FORM = That’s what I’m in the way of doing’; or ‘That’s the sort of man I am.’
1884. Punch, 11 Oct. ‘’Arry at a Political Picnic.’ Athletics ain’t hardly my FORM.
