de facto

1. 1.

   existing in fact whether with lawful authority or not

   “de facto segregation is as real as segregation imposed by law”

   “a de facto state of war”

   Antonymsde jure

1. 1.

   in reality or fact

   “the result was, de facto, a one-party system”

Questions about de facto

What does de facto mean?

de facto means "existing in fact whether with lawful authority or not". That is the primary sense; the word has 2 in total, listed in full on this page.

What is the opposite of de facto?

The recorded antonyms are de jure.

Is de facto a common word?

de facto is banded "Uncommon" — turns up in careful writing rather than conversation. The band comes from how often the word appears in a large corpus of everyday English, not from an editor's impression.