Meanings
- In practice, though in an unacknowledged way.
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.
2 more examples
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 49Synonyms: de facto, for all intents and purposes, for all practical purposes, in everything but name, in practice, practically, virtually
Synonyms & antonyms
prepositional phraseIn practice, though in an unacknowledged way.
Cite this entry
in all but name. (n.d.). In WatkinsX Dictionary. Retrieved November 5, 2026, from https://dictionary.watkinsx.com/word/in%20all%20but%20name
“in all but name.” WatkinsX Dictionary, https://dictionary.watkinsx.com/word/in%20all%20but%20name. Accessed November 5, 2026.
WatkinsX Dictionary, s.v. “in all but name,” accessed November 5, 2026, https://dictionary.watkinsx.com/word/in%20all%20but%20name.
Source: in all but name on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.