Other forms: formed, forms, forming
A form is the shape something takes. The form of a building, in the form of a letter, water in solid form. It is also a printed sheet with spaces to fill in, which is the sense most people meet most often.
The word does a great deal beyond that. A form is a type or variety — a form of transport, an early form of the word. In sport, form is how well somebody is playing lately: on form, out of form, a return to form. In British schools a form is a year group. And as a verb it means to make, to shape, or to come into existence: form a queue, form an opinion, ice formed overnight.
1nounformA printed sheet with spaces for information.
“Fill in the form and hand it to reception.”
2nounshapeThe shape or appearance of something.
“A dark form appeared at the end of the corridor.”
3nounvarietyA type or variety of something.
“Cycling is the cheapest form of transport there is.”
4verbexistenceTo make something, or to come into existence.
“Ice formed on the inside of the windows.”
5nounwellHow well somebody has been performing lately.
“She has been in good form all season.”
Too few real examples of this word to estimate which sense is commonest.
form is a shape or a document.
Latin forma meant shape, mould or pattern, and it is the root of an enormous English family — formal, format, formula, uniform, reform, inform. To inform somebody was originally to give shape to their mind.
Latin
fōrma — shape, figure, image, outline, plan, mold, frame, case, etc., manner, sort, kind, etc.
Old French
forme
Middle English
forme — shape, figure, manner, bench, frame, seat, condition, agreement, etc.
English, today
form
From Middle English forme (“shape, figure, manner, bench, frame, seat, condition, agreement, etc.”), borrowed from Old French forme, from Latin fōrma (“shape, figure, image, outline, plan, mold, frame, case, etc., manner, sort, kind, etc.”). In sense "division grouping school students" (now dated), derived from public school nomenclature later adopted by state schools. It is sometimes said to be from the sense of "bench", where students of certain ages would sit together, though this is disputed, or alternatively from the sense of "established method of expression or practice".
Etymology from Wiktionary, CC BY-SA