in essence

1. 1.

   with regard to fundamentals although not concerning details

   “in principle, we agree”

   Synonymsin principlein theory

Questions about in essence

What does in essence mean?

in essence means "with regard to fundamentals although not concerning details".

What is another word for in essence?

Close synonyms include in principle, in theory. 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 essence a common word?

in essence is banded "Rare" — specialist or archaic — most readers will not have met it. The band comes from how often the word appears in a large corpus of everyday English, not from an editor's impression.