''de facto'' ▫ᴱᴺ Entries

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''de facto'' ▫ᴱᴺ｜Definition｜1st｜20260320113731-00-⌔

de facto - Wiktionary, the free dictionary

English

Adverb

de facto (not comparable)

• (modal) In actual use or existence, regardless of official or legal status.
  • ✤ Synonyms: in fact, in practice, factually, practically
  • ✤ Coordinate terms: de jure, legally, legalistically; see also Thesaurus: actually

Adjective

de facto (not comparable)

• In actual use or existence, regardless of official or legal status.
  • ✤ Coordinate terms: de jure; real, true; see also Thesaurus: genuine
  • ✤ 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 commensurate with its de facto role as the provincial capital of Russian Manchuria.¹
  • ✤ Taiwan held a ceremony on Thursday to commission the first squadron of its most advanced F-16 fighter, a US-made jet that will strengthen the island’s defences against threats by China.
    President Tsai Ing-wen oversaw the ceremony at an air base in the southern city of Chiayi alongside Sandra Oudkirk, Washington’s de facto ambassador to Taiwan.²

Noun

de facto (plural de factos)

• (Australia, New Zealand) 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.³
  • ✤ 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.⁴
  • ✤ The parental rights and responsibilities of de factos are the same as for legally married parents but, because property and maintenance of de factos is a state responsibility, there are differences between married and de factos in some states.⁵

Etymology

Unadapted borrowing from Latin dē factō (literally “according to fact”), from dē (“according to”) + ablative of factum (“fact, deed, act”).

Pronunciation

• (UK) IPA: /ˌdeɪˈfæktəʊ/, /dɪˈfæktəʊ/, /ˌdiːˈfæktəʊ/
• (US) IPA: /ˌdeɪˈfæktoʊ/, /dəˈfæktoʊ/, /ˌdiˈfæktoʊ/
• Audio (Australian): 🔊
• Audio (US): 🔊

Printed 2026-06-28.

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Footnotes

1. 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 ‎${}^{[1]}$, M.E. Sharpe, →ISBN, →LCCN, →OCLC, page 45: ↩

2. 2021 November 18, “Taiwan deploys first advanced F-16V fighter squadron”, in France 24 ‎${}^{[2]}$, archived from the original on 18 November 2021: ↩

3. 1984, Sotirios Sarantakos, Living Together in Australia ‎${}^{[3]}$, page 141: ↩

4. 1984, Australian Senate, Senate Weekly Hansard ‎${}^{[4]}$, volume 105, page 2213: ↩

5. 2008, David de Vaus, Chapter 15: Australian Families: Social and Demographic Patterns, in Charles B. Hennon, Stephan M. Wilson (editors), Families in a Global Context, 2011, page 383, ↩

Link to original

Secondary

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