in all but name en · ADP
Meanings
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In practice, though in an unacknowledged way.
Thenceforth my voice was a household law; and at an age when few children have abandoned their leading-strings, I was left to the guidance of my own will, and became, in all but name, the master of my own actions.
1839, Edgar Allan Poe, “William Wilson”, in Tales of the Grotesque and Arabesque, Philadelphia: Lea and Blanchard, published 1940, page 29:‘Do you mean to say that you’ve become a communist?’ ‘In all but name, William, yes. In all but name.’
1935, Christopher Isherwood, chapter 5, in Mr Norris Changes Trains, Penguin, published 1942, page 49:2012, Katie Kitamura, Gone to the Forest, New York: Free Press, Chapter 5, p. 76, He thinks: I have been running the farm in all but name. Leave and nothing here will change. You will see.
Synonyms
in everything but name · de facto · in practice · practically · virtually · for all practical purposes · for all intents and purposes