These words can refer to the whole pattern or ordering of something, its make-up or constitution, or its enclosing surfaces. Form is the most general of these, applying in all these ways: the sonnet form ; ice is water in solid form ; rectangular in form . At one extreme, it can merely indicate external appearance: a form-fitting dress. At the other, it can contrast with content all the interrelated patterns and techniques that make of something an organic unity: The author’s keen sense of form sustains him through a subject that could easily have gone awry.

Shape more readily suggests a three-dimensional bulk, but it is not restricted to this reference: the gnarled shapes of century-old cypresses. The word can also apply to the enclosing surfaces of both a plane or solid object: an elliptical shape ; a dress to show off her lovely shape . When form and shape are contrasted, form usually suggests a prescribed or typical pattern, whereas shape suggests the individual interrelationships that a specific thing exhibits: the startling variety of shapes with which the sculptor had fleshed out the human and animal forms he had chosen as his subjects.

When outline and contour are contrasted, outline may apply to the bounding edges of a plane figure, whereas contour pertains exclusively to the enclosing surface of a solid figure: a star-shaped outline ; the graceful contours of a pear. Outline , however, can refer more generally to the containing perimeter of any shape , plane or solid; in the latter case, it suggests one of a solid’s possible silhouettes: the jutting outline of his chin in profile.

Figure refers in plane geometry to any form enclosed by three or more lines: A trapezoid is a figure bounded by four lines. In other uses, the word may suggest something reduced to its diagrammatic essential, or to the characteristic form or set of outlines by which something is recognizable: eyes peeled for the familiar hunched figure of an apple tree that marked the right path to the farmhouse. At the same time, however, the word can refer to the details that fill out and give body to a form : a slow movement memorable for a complex pizzicato figure that recurs in the violins. Like shape , the word can refer to the human body, but with a greater emphasis on the total impression made by the relationship of part to part: a trim, clean-cut figure ; He cut an imposing figure in his new dinner suit. Configuration can refer like contour to the outlines of a solid shape , but whereas contour can sometimes suggest gentle or smooth undulations, configuration can apply to any sort of shape ; it is particularly relevant to landscape: a house designed by the architect to exploit and fit into the dramatic configuration of the cliff. In more general uses, configuration suggests the exact disposition of all the observable details within a form , as well as its external outlines : the lacework configurations of a snowflake; a configuration of jagged shapes within the symmetrical form of each inkblot.

Structure concentrates on the disposition of details suggested by one use of configuration . But structure may refer in addition to an underlying form that is not necessarily observable by a glance at the outlines of something: excessive fat disguising what was basically a perfectly formed bone structure . Also, structure emphasizes the organic interrelatedness of a whole, seen from the perspective of function: the complicated structure of the executive branch of the government; the structure of the petrol engine. Gestalt is the most inclusive of these words in pointing to the totality of details that go to make up a moment of experience, referring to all those factors that impinge on a single psychological state. The word is drawn from gestalt psychology, which theorizes that the unity of such a totality is greater than the sum of its parts. The word has since been applied more generally to anything that can be said to have organic structure: Each of the scenes in the novel contributed to an overall gestalt of guilt and redemption.