ostensibly

English

WOTD – 5 April 2007

Etymology

From ostensible +‎ -ly.

Pronunciation

• (Received Pronunciation) IPA^(key): /ɒˈstɛn.sɪ.bli/ or /ɒˈstɛn.sə.bli/
• (US) IPA^(key): /ɑːˈstɛn.sə.bli/

• Audio (US)

  (file)

• Audio (AU)

  (file)

• Hyphenation: os‧ten‧si‧bly

Adverb

ostensibly (not comparable)

1. (modal) Seemingly, apparently, on the surface.

   Synonyms: apparently, arguably, at first blush, seemingly; see also Thesaurus:ostensibly

   • 1889, Leslie Stephen, Sidney Lee, Dictionary of National Biography:

     On 13 June the peshwa signed a new treaty, ostensibly complying with the demands of the British government […]

   • 1905, Upton Sinclair, chapter IX, in The Jungle, New York, N.Y.: Doubleday, Page & Company, published 26 February 1906, →OCLC:

     Up to a year or two ago it had been the custom to kill horses in the yards — ostensibly for fertilizer; […]

   • 1951 December, T. B. Sands, “Some Railway Byways in the Vale of Glamorgan”, in Railway Magazine, page 838:

     The original branch was 5¾ miles long, from Llantrisant to Cowbridge only, but in 1889, the T.V.R. [Taff Vale Railway] obtained powers […] to continue the line for 6½ miles south to the coast at Aberthaw, ostensibly for the purpose of serving the important limestone works there, but one suspects other motives, including an understandable desire on the part of the T.V.R. to put a spoke in the wheel of the oncoming Barry Railway !

   • 2007, Brian Herbert, Kevin J Anderson, Sandworms of Dune:

     People strive to achieve perfection — ostensibly an honorable goal — but complete perfection is dangerous. To be imperfect, but human, is far preferable.

   • 2007 April 10, “Who Killed Ashraf Marwan?”, in The New York Times‎^[1], retrieved 18 September 2015:

     Mr. Marwan’s story — a tale overflowing with the suspense and ruthless duplicity of a spy novel — began to take shape in the spring of 1969. He had come to London, ostensibly to consult a Harley Street doctor about a stomach ailment. He chose to be examined by a doctor whose offices had been used previously for a covert meeting between King Hussein of Jordan and the general director of the Israeli prime minister’s office."

   • 2023 July 26, Christian Wolmar, “Closing ticket offices to lead to 'catch-22' for passengers”, in RAIL, number 988, page 42:

     Quite possibly the worst aspect of this is the role of the train operating companies and their representative body, the ineptly named Rail Delivery Group (RDG). Ostensibly, the plan has come from them. In reality, this has been driven entirely by Government, which asked each train operator to draw up plans for its area.

Related terms

• ostensive

Translations

ostensibly

• Bulgarian: привидно (bg) (prividno), уж (bg) (už)
• Catalan: ostensiblement (ca)
• Czech: zdánlivě (cs)
• Dutch: ogenschijnlijk (nl), op het eerste gezicht, schijnbaar (nl)
• Esperanto: ŝajne (eo)
• Finnish: näennäisesti (fi)
• French: ostensiblement (fr), soi-disant (fr), en apparence (fr)
• German: vorgeblich (de), offenbar (de), offensichtlich (de), anscheinend (de)
• Greek: φαινομενικά (el) (fainomeniká), δήθεν (el) (díthen), κατ' επίφαση (kat' epífasi)
• Irish: de réir cosúlachta, de réir dealraimh
• Japanese: うわべは (uwabe wa), 表向きは (omotemuki wa)
• Norwegian:

  Bokmål: tilsynelatende

• Persian: به ظاهر
• Polish: pozornie (pl)
• Portuguese: ostensivamente (pt) f
• Russian: я́кобы (ru) (jákoby), вроде как (vrode kak) (colloquial)
• Serbo-Croatian:

  Cyrillic: то̀боже

  Roman: tòbože (sh)

• Spanish: ostensiblemente (es)
• Swedish: skenbart (sv), till synes (sv)

References

• “ostensibly”, in OneLook Dictionary Search.