formatted

1. 1
   verb

   Simple past and past participle of format.

   The editor formatted the manuscript to match the publisher's style guide.

   All the files were formatted incorrectly and had to be redone.

   Note

   One spelling does two jobs. It is the plain past (we formatted the article) and also the participle after have or in the passive (the files were formatted). It carries both lives of the verb, arranging a document's layout and preparing a storage medium, and the two can collide. Formatting a report tidies it, but formatting a drive erases whatever was on it, which is the meaning behind the storage adjective.

2. 2
   adjective

   Having been given a definite layout or arrangement according to a particular format.

   The properly formatted résumé stood out among the messy applications.

   A clearly formatted table makes the data much easier to scan.

   Similarstructured, organized, arranged, presented, styled

   Oppositeunstructured, disorganized, messy

3. 3
   adjective

   Physically arranged so that a storage device is in a state ready to hold data.

   The newly formatted hard drive showed its full capacity in the file manager.

   A formatted SD card mounted instantly on the laptop.

   Similarblank, erased

   Oppositeunformatted, raw

   Note

   A computing word for the state a disk, drive or card is left in once it has been prepared to take data: a file system laid down and the medium organized into addressable sectors. It describes storage media, not what they hold. A formatted drive is ready for files, while a neatly formatted file belongs to the layout sense.

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