in all but name

in all but name

1. In practice, though in an unacknowledged way.

   Synonyms: de facto, for all intents and purposes, for all practical purposes, in practice, practically, virtually

   • 1839, Edgar Allan Poe, “William Wilson”, in Tales of the Grotesque and Arabesque‎, Philadelphia: Lea and Blanchard, published 1940, page 29:

     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.

   • 1935, Christopher Isherwood, chapter 5, in Mr Norris Changes Trains‎, Penguin, published 1942, page 49:

     ‘Do you mean to say that you’ve become a communist?’
     ‘In all but name, William, yes. In all but name.’

   • 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.