Definitions

from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 5th Edition.

  • adjective Seeming or professed; ostensible.

from The Century Dictionary.

  • Showing; betokening.
  • Setting forth a general principle by virtue of which a proposition must be true. The old logicians supposed all strict proof to be either of this nature or else apagogic.

from the GNU version of the Collaborative International Dictionary of English.

  • adjective Showing; exhibiting.
  • adjective (Math.) a direct or positive demonstration, as opposed to the apagogical or indirect method.

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License.

  • adjective Apparently true, but not necessarily; ostensible
  • adjective Clearly demonstrative.

from WordNet 3.0 Copyright 2006 by Princeton University. All rights reserved.

  • adjective represented or appearing as such; pretended
  • adjective manifestly demonstrative

Etymologies

from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 4th Edition

[Late Latin ostēnsīvus, from Latin ostēnsus, past participle of ostendere, to show; see ostensible.]

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License

From French ostensif, from Medieval Latin ostensivus

Support

Help support Wordnik (and make this page ad-free) by adopting the word ostensive.

Examples

Comments

Log in or sign up to get involved in the conversation. It's quick and easy.

  • In linguistics or philosophy, an ostensive definition is one made by pointing something out: 'That's an okapi.'

    August 7, 2008