in fact
See also: infact
English
Etymology
From fact (“deed, action”) (now obsolete, except in law)
Pronunciation
Audio (US): (file)
Prepositional phrase
- (law) Resulting from the actions of parties.
- (modal) Actually, in truth.
- People think tomatoes are vegetables, but, in fact, they are fruits.
- 1898, Winston Churchill, chapter 3, in The Celebrity:
- Now all this was very fine, but not at all in keeping with the Celebrity's character as I had come to conceive it. The idea that adulation ever cloyed on him was ludicrous in itself. In fact I thought the whole story fishy, and came very near to saying so.
- Template:RQ:BLwnds TLdgr
- A great bargain also had been the excellent Axminster carpet which covered the floor; as, again, the arm-chair in which Bunting now sat forward, staring into the dull, small fire. In fact, that arm-chair had been an extravagance of Mrs. Bunting. She had wanted her husband to be comfortable after the day's work was done, and she had paid thirty-seven shillings for the chair.
- 2015 August 8, Bob Holmes, Ocean hills yield secret ecosystems, New Scientist, Issue 3033, page 14,
- We tend to think of the seafloor a few kilometres down as a flat plain. In fact, about two-thirds of this “abyssal” seabed is made up of gentle rolling hills a few hundred metres high, says Jennifer Durden at the University of Southampton, UK.
Synonyms
- (in truth): as a matter of fact; see also Thesaurus:actually
Coordinate terms
- (resulting from the actions of parties): in law
Translations
actually, in truth
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