Home » Dictionary » de facto

de facto

de facto
 n.— «One’s unmarried partner is referred to as the de facto husband or wife by some authorities. This has passed into Australian casual usage, in contrast to other English-speaking countries, as the slang term defacto to refer to one’s significant other. e.g. “This is my defacto, Rachael”. This is equivalent to the term common-law husband or wife in other countries of the British Commonwealth and in the U.S.» —“Options for “Marital status”” by Avlokana Åvlokana (Australia) Apr. 26, 2004. (source: Double-Tongued Dictionary)

Leave a comment

This site uses Akismet to reduce spam. Learn how your comment data is processed.

Further reading

Mudlarking (episode #1561)

Twice a day the River Thames recedes, revealing a muddy shoreline. Hobbyists known as mudlarks stroll the surface searching for objects that have found their way into the river over the centuries, everything from ancient Roman jewelry to modern...

Snaggletooth (episode #1560)

Many of us struggled with the Old English poem “Beowulf” in high school. But what if you could actually hear “Beowulf” in the English of today? There’s a new translation by Maria Dahvana Headley that uses contemporary...

Recent posts