This authority is called colourable, and the officer in such cases is said to be an officer de facto; which intends an intermediate state between an exercise strictly lawful and one without such colour of right.
"Memoirs of Aaron Burr, Complete"
Matthew L. Davis
Once a big shell burst within a yard of the grassy roof, on the very edge of the high ground of which the roof was a colourable extension.
"Notes of a Camp-Follower on the Western Front"
E. W. Hornung
Here is the distinction, always needed and constantly ignored, between that veritable fruition of Eternal Life which results from the interaction of will and grace, and demands of the soul the highest intensity and most active love, and that colourable imitation of it which is produced by a psychic trick, and is independent alike of the human effort and the divine gift.
"Ruysbroeck"
Evelyn Underhill