nominal head

In the management of penal institutions a Board of Directors or of Control is, ordinarily, the nominal head.

After witnessing the ruin of the party of which he had been the nominal head, he had retired to Holland.

Strangers who visit the island are received by the nominal head of the family, whom the others call father.

The duke of Portland became the nominal head of the government, Fox and North its real leaders.

He, I soon discovered, did most of the actual work, though his father was still the nominal head of affairs.