formality

from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 5th Edition.

• noun The quality or condition of being formal.
• noun Rigorous or ceremonious adherence to established forms, rules, or customs.
• noun An established form, rule, or custom, especially one followed merely for the sake of procedure or decorum.

from The Century Dictionary.

• noun The condition or quality of being formal; specifically, rigid or undue observance of forms or established rules, as in style, conduct, or procedure; especially, the sacrifice of substance or spirit to form; conventionality.
• noun The result of exclusive attention to the rules of art, without life or spontaneity.
• noun An established order; a rule of proceeding; a formal mode or method: as, the formalities of judicial process; formalities of law.
• noun Validity; binding force.
• noun Customary behavior or dress, or customary ceremony; ceremonial.
• noun In philosophy, external appearance; formal part.
• noun In the philosophy of Duns Scotus, a formal element of being; a quidditative ens, or anything belonging thereto except an intrinsic mode.
• noun The character of the formal in the Kantian sense: universality and necessity.

from the GNU version of the Collaborative International Dictionary of English.

• noun The condition or quality of being formal, strictly ceremonious, precise, etc.
• noun Form without substance.
• noun Compliance with formal or conventional rules; ceremony; conventionality.
• noun An established order; conventional rule of procedure; usual method; habitual mode.
• noun obsolete The dress prescribed for any body of men, academical, municipal, or sacerdotal.
• noun That which is formal; the formal part.
• noun The quality which makes a thing what it is; essence.
• noun (Scholastic. Philos.) The manner in which a thing is conceived or constituted by an act of human thinking; the result of such an act.

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License.

• noun uncountable The state of being formal.
• noun Something said or done as a matter of form.
• noun A customary ritual without new or unique meaning.

from WordNet 3.0 Copyright 2006 by Princeton University. All rights reserved.

• noun compliance with formal rules
• noun a requirement of etiquette or custom
• noun a manner that strictly observes all forms and ceremonies