de facto
UK/ˌdeɪˈfæktəʊ//ˌdeɪˈfæktoʊ/
de facto adverb: in actual use or existence, regardless of official or legal status.
Adverb
de facto (not comparable)
- In actual use or existence, regardless of official or legal status.
- Synonyms:
- in fact, in practice, factually, practically
Adjective
de facto (not comparable)
- In actual use or existence, regardless of official or legal status.
- While it is largely recognized that Ukraine holds de jure sovereignty on Crimea, Russia exercises de facto administration on the peninsula.
- To avoid conflicts (and associated delays and distractions) with other ministries' minions in Vladivostok, Chief Engineer Iugovich moved his headquarters to Harbin in 1898. Within fifteen years, a transportation hub with more than 100,000 inhabitants had sprung up. Its size and importance were...1995, David Wolff, “Russia Finds Its Limits: Crossing Borders into Manchuria”, in Stephen Kotkin, David Wolff, editors, Rediscovering Russia in Asia : Siberia and the Russian Far East, M.E. Sharpe...
Noun
de facto (plural de factos)
- A legally undeclared spouse; a partner in a spousal relationship which is not officially declared as a marriage, comparable to a common law husband or wife.
- One of the vendors was simple and straight; he said that it was his policy not to rent a house to de factos.1984, Sotirios Sarantakos, Living Together in Australia, page 141
- An incidental sideline to this little farce, I suppose we can call it, is that the Opposition, in this policy, seems to have reversed its so often stated policy in this place on de factos.1984, Australian Senate, Senate Weekly Hansard, volume 105, page 2213
de facto meaning in Hindi, Tamil, Malayalam and Kannada
de facto in Hindi
- in fact or in practice
- सत्यानुसार satyānusār
de facto in Tamil
- உண்மையான, நடப்பின்படி மெய்யான, நடப்பிலுள்ள, நடைமுறையில், நிகழ்நிலைப்படி, மெய்யான
de facto in Malayalam
- in effect, in practice, in fact
- ശരിയായ വസ്തുത എന്ന നിലയിൽ, യഥാർത്ഥത്തിൽ, പരമാർത്ഥത്തിൽ, പ്രയോഗത്തിൽ, പ്രായോഗികമായി, ഫലത്തിൽ
- actual, real, effective
- ശരിക്കുള്ള, യഥാർത്ഥത്തിലുള്ള, യാഥാർത്ഥികമായ, വാസ്തവമായ, പരമാർത്ഥമായ, ഫലത്തിലുള്ള
de facto in Kannada
- ನಿಜವಾಗಿ, ಕಾರ್ಯತಃ, ನ್ಯಾಯವೋ ಅನ್ಯಾಯವೋ ವಾಸ್ತವವಾಗಿ
More languagesFewer languages
- de facto in Arabic
- بحكم الأمر الواقع
- de facto in Persian
- دفاکتو de-fâkto, بالفعل belfe'l
Synonyms of de facto
Forms of de facto
| Adjective | |
|---|---|
| alternative form | defacto |
| Noun | |
| plural | de factos |
Origin of de facto
Unadapted borrowing from Latin dē factō (literally “according to fact”), from dē (“according to”) + ablative of factum (“fact, deed, act”).
Words formed from de facto
Questions about de facto
- What does de facto mean?
- De facto means in actual use or existence, regardless of official or legal status.
- What is de facto in Hindi?
- De facto in Hindi is सत्यानुसार (satyānusār). See De facto meaning in Hindi.
- What part of speech is de facto?
- De facto can be an adverb, an adjective or a noun.
- How do you pronounce de facto?
- De facto is pronounced /ˌdeɪˈfæktəʊ/ (UK).
Words near de facto in the dictionary
Source and license
Adapted from Wiktionary: de facto (page history and authors); de facto (Tamil Wiktionary) (page history and authors); de facto (Olam, E.K. Kurup corpus) (dataset and license); de facto (Kannada Wiktionary) (page history and authors). Text available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 license. Word.ws reformatted the entry and added links. Wiktionary data of 2026-09-02.
Last updated:
Pronunciation audio from Wikimedia Commons, each file under its own free license: EN-AU ck1 de facto.ogg, LL-Q1860 (eng)-Flame, not lame-de facto.wav.
Cite this entry: “de facto.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/de_facto. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.