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Middlemarch vocabulary
551 vocabulary words, including people, places, music, artists, etc.
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ostensible
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► definition
Definition:appearing to be true but not necessarily so; apparent
► uses
Uses:
she said with a mournful, confiding expression, ostensibly addressing her brother, but unmistakably intending her words only for Levin,
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My ostensible errand on this occasion was to get measured for a pair of shoes;
Charlotte Brontë. Jane Eyre (1847)
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The ostensible reason why Ahab did not go on board of the whaler we had spoken was this: the wind and sea betokened storms. But even had this not been the case, he would not after all, perhaps, have boarded her— judging by his subsequent conduct on similar occasions— if so it had been that, by the process of hailing, he had obtained a negative answer to the question he put.
Herman Melville. Moby Dick
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And all the time, hatred of his ostensible "uncle" was steadily growing in his heart; for he said to himself, "He is white; and I am his chattel, his property, his goods, and he can sell me, just as he could his dog."
Mark Twain. The Tragedy of Pudd'nhead Wilson (1894)
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Dougal held me by one arm; ostensibly to support me lest I stumble in my satin slippers, in reality to prevent any last-minute breaks for freedom.
Diana Gabaldon. Outlander (1991)
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I was to be prosecuted in a criminal court ostensibly for measles, but really for having owned a watch, and attempted the reintroduction of machinery.
Samuel Butler. Erewhon
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you may taste, even you, my master, the ambrosial joys of Olympus.” It was in an ostensible vein of sarcasm that he had asked me to call him, and that he himself called me, “my master.”
Marcel Proust. In Search of Lost Time [volume 1]
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But the kindest thing that could be said about Brownsville’s ostensible purpose was that the desert was taking a Christless long time to bloom.
Stephen King. The Stand (1990)
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