Word.ws English Dictionary

ostension

ostension noun: the act of presenting an ostensive definition.

Noun

ostension (countable and uncountable, plural ostensions)

  1. The act of presenting an ostensive definition.
    • And ostension is one perfectly familiar way of introducing a concept.2008 November 22, Richard Fumerton, “Luminous enough for a cognitive home”, in Philosophical Studies, volume 142, number 1, →DOI
  2. (human communication) An act of showing or demonstrating.
  3. The showing of the sacrament on the altar in order that it may receive the adoration of the communicants.
  4. Real-life events that parallel well-known events from myth and folklore

Forms of ostension

pluralostensions

Origin of ostension

Borrowed from Middle French ostension, in turn from Latin ostensiō, ostensiōnem.

Questions about ostension

What does ostension mean?
Ostension means the act of presenting an ostensive definition.
What part of speech is ostension?
Ostension is a noun.
What is the plural of ostension?
The plural of ostension is ostensions.

Words near ostension in the dictionary

  1. ostending
  2. ostends
  3. ostensibility
  4. ostensible
  5. ostensibly
  6. ostension
  7. ostensions
  8. ostensive
  9. ostensive definition
  10. ostensive definitions
  11. ostensively

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: ostension (page history and authors). Text available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 license. Word.ws reformatted the entry and added links. Wiktionary data of 2026-09-02.

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Cite this entry: “ostension.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/ostension. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.