in effect

Questions about in effect

What does in effect mean?

in effect means "exerting force or influence". That is the primary sense; the word has 2 in total, listed in full on this page.

What is another word for in effect?

Close synonyms include effective, good, in force, effectively. Each sense on this page lists its own synonyms, because a word with several meanings rarely has one substitute that works for all of them.

Is in effect a common word?

in effect is banded "Familiar" — widely understood, used when the subject calls for it. The band comes from how often the word appears in a large corpus of everyday English, not from an editor's impression.