for all practical purposes
5
3.8
- idiom
:
prácticamente
- The old regulations are, for all practical purposes, obsolete and no longer relevant.
- have become, for all practical purposes
Now the Kuowmintang has two factions that are, for all practical purposes, irreconcilably different.
- Now the Kuowmintang has two factions that are, for all practical purposes, irreconcilably different.
- That sequence seems for all practical purposes random.
- There is no data, and there won't be any data, which is why the black hole information loss problem is, for all practical purposes, unsolvable.
- It's obvious that for all practical purposes, for things that are identical, we have to divide by this factor.
- It was truly incredible to be able to see him try to get out of word that was for all practical purposes unintelligible.
Examples
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But for all practical purposes, any book will do, right?
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During the Cultural Revolution, PRC-Latin American relations, for all practical purposes, were nonexistent.
Academic text (1997) -
Or had it already passed on, for all practical purposes?
Academic text (2002) -
And yet, for all practical purposes, he had ended that life yesterday.
Fiction book (1998) -
Each of us, for all practical purposes, is unique in the universe.
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That sequence seems for all practical purposes random.
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The refugee issue, for all practical purposes, was buried.
Academic text (1990) -
With regard to gas, we are, for all practical purposes, an exporter at this point.
Blog text (15) -
Indeed, that argument is true for all practical purposes.
Blog text (17) -
Catholicism was not only compatible with liberal democracy; for all practical purposes, it was identical with it.
Academic text (1997)
Synonyms
258
3.7
Works in practice even if not official
172
3.8
It is true in reality even if not officially stated
12
2.5
In a way that works in real life
8
3.5
In practice, it is true even if not officially so
3
5.0
In practice, it has almost the same result
Antonyms
How True
Surface Forms
Morphology
for + all + practical + purpose
The phrase's constituents ('for' + 'all' + 'practical' + 'purposes') straightforwardly suggest consideration of every practical case, so a learner who knows the words can often infer the general sense 'in practice' or 'effectively'. However, the expression is a conventionalized adverbial phrase with an abstract, non-literal nuance and fixed word order; its precise pragmatic use and register are somewhat idiomatic and may not be fully predictable without prior exposure. Cross-linguistic equivalents (e.g. Spanish 'a efectos prácticos', French 'en pratique') make the logic somewhat accessible, so it is partially but not wholly transparent.
Etymology
For all practical purposes may come from an older use of practical meaning things that work in real life, not just on paper. Imagine someone listing small rules and then saying For all practical purposes to mean 'in most real situations', so today it means 'effectively' when small exceptions do not matter.