Ostensibly

How to spell ostensibly

10 letters · 4 syllables

How to pronounce ostensibly

Say the part in capitals loudest.

What does ostensibly mean?

1. adverbAs it appears on the surface or is officially stated, though the real reason or truth may differ.

Ostensibly in a sentence

• He booked the trip ostensibly for work, but spent most of it sightseeing.

• The committee met ostensibly to review the budget, while the real agenda was hiring.

Where does ostensibly come from?

Language of origin: Latin

This adverb traces back to the Latin verb ostendere, which meant 'to show, display, or hold out to view'. That verb was itself built from ob, meaning 'toward', and tendere, meaning 'to stretch', so the literal sense was of stretching something out so that others could see it. From the past participle ostensus, scholars formed the medieval Latin ostensibilis, 'able to be shown', and this passed into French as ostensible before arriving in English in the 1700s. The modern flavour, 'shown on the surface but not necessarily true underneath', grew naturally from that idea of a thing put on display. The same tendere root for stretching also gives us tension, extend, and tendon, and remembering that shared 'tens' core is the surest way to keep the tricky middle of the spelling in place.

How the word is built

• os- (from ob-: toward)
• tens (from tendere: to stretch)
• -ible (able to be)
• -ly (adverb)