in all but name

Prepositional phrase

1. 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

   Synonyms:

   de facto, for all intents and purposes, for all practical purposes, in everything but name, in practice, practically, virtually