in name only

1. 1.

   by title or repute though not in fact

   “he's a doctor in name only”

   Synonymsin name

Questions about in name only

What does in name only mean?

in name only means "by title or repute though not in fact".

What is another word for in name only?

Close synonyms include in name. 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 name only a common word?

in name only 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.