formatrix

English

Etymology

Learned borrowing from Latin formātrīx.

Noun

formatrix

1. (obsolete) A formative faculty.
   • 1665, Robert Hooke, Micrographia, section XX:

     [W]e see that there may be a very pretty body shap'd and concreeted by Mechanical principles, without the least shew or probability of any other seminal formatrix.

References

• “formatrix, n.”, in OED Online ⁠, Oxford: Oxford University Press, launched 2000.