for (all) practical purposes

idiom

—used to say that one thing has the same effect or result as something else

His effort to hide the document was, for practical purposes, an admission that he had made a mistake.

During the blizzard, the town was, for all practical purposes, shut down.

Examples of for (all) practical purposes in a Sentence

Recent Examples on the Web

Ownership and Markets Are Inextricable Some policymakers have proposed rules that would effectively ban tokens and therefore, for all practical purposes, blockchains. —Chris Dixon, Fortune, 10 Mar. 2024

There is now a sense that, for all practical purposes, the investigation into the disappearance of the Forty-three has come to an end. —Alma Guillermoprieto, The New Yorker, 4 Mar. 2024

The first indoor location system Balakrishnan has created other systems that use sensors for practical purposes. —IEEE Spectrum, 12 Nov. 2023

So, for practical purposes, toothpaste isn’t a great option. —Jeanne Huber, Washington Post, 5 Jan. 2024

These preliminary investigations led to a more substantial British developmental effort, but by the autumn of 1953, about one year after the country’s first nuclear weapons detonation, its radiological arms program had for all practical purposes been abandoned. —William C. Potter, Foreign Affairs, 15 Dec. 2023

However, there are several beaches in Puerto Rico that, for all practical purposes, businesses have privatized, contrary to the archipelago’s law that all beaches are public spaces. —Camille Padilla Dalmau and Frances Medina, refinery29.com, 4 Oct. 2023

Earth's core, as inaccessible as the Sun for all practical purposes, has always made a handy repository for our wildest fantasies. —Cody Cottier, Discover Magazine, 17 Aug. 2023

Most actors don’t pay too much attention to the language, and for practical purposes, background performances are typically not spliced into other projects to be reused in perpetuity. —Gene Maddaus, Variety, 25 July 2023