for all intents and purposes
8
3.5
- idiom
- Formal
:
prácticamente
- Alex Rodriguez, for all intents and purposes, is a good guy.
He is for all intents and purposes, a neo Nazi domestic terrorist sympathizer.
- He is for all intents and purposes, a neo Nazi domestic terrorist sympathizer.
- So it's, it's a big hunk of junk that that for all intents and purposes is, is pointless.
- But one more time you are Adidas boxing in America for all intents and purposes.
- And so on the LSAT, I, I for all intents and purposes, I should not have gotten into law school.
- We're farther away from a generation that really did save the world for all, for all intents and purposes.
- And for all intents and purposes in totality, the system is more or less a scam.
- As a man, you know, for all intents and purposes, you are a menstruating woman who's going through hell.
- And I think that for all intents and purposes, As for for white people, marijuana has legally been effectively been legal for a long time.
Examples
-
For all intents and purposes, she succeeded.
-
American companies have, for all intents and purposes, given up on the Japanese market.
Blog text (15) -
But you know, for all intents and purposes it's the same spirit.
-
And for all intents and purposes, it was you.
-
You, for all intents and purposes, are our leading expert.
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For all intents and purposes I am Jordan.
-
For all intents and purposes, this was a phantom computer on our network.
Fiction book (1997) -
For all intents and purposes, production of barley would not be an option.
Academic text (1993) -
Quadrant B, for all intents and purposes, describes the status quo.
Academic text (1994) -
For all intents and purposes, this report highlights the project's success.
Synonyms
258
3.7
Works in practice even if not official
172
3.8
It is true in reality even if not officially stated
5
3.8
In most real situations it is true even if not by the rules
3
5.0
In practice, it has almost the same result
Antonyms
How True
∞
1.0
- Formal
8
3.5
258
3.7
- Specialized
434
4.8
69
4.9
Surface Forms
Morphology
for + all + intent + and + purpose
The phrase 'for all intents and purposes' is an idiomatic, somewhat legalistic formula whose practical sense ('in effect, practically') is not directly predictable from the literal words 'intents' and 'purposes' or the conjunction 'for all'. A B1 learner who knows the individual words would likely not infer the conventional meaning without prior exposure, since the expression has undergone conventionalization and differs from a straightforward compositional reading.
Etymology
The phrase for all intents and purposes comes from old legal language. Lawyers would list every intent and purpose to make a rule cover every case, so the phrase came to mean 'true in practice' even if it was not exactly true in writing.