Word.ws English Dictionary

ostent

Syllables: os·tent/ˈɒstɛnt/US/ˈɑstɛnt/

ostent verb: to make an ambitious display of; to exhibit or show boastingly; to ostentate.

Verb

ostent (third-person singular simple present ostents, present participle ostenting, simple past and past participle ostented)

  1. (ambitransitive, obsolete) To make an ambitious display of; to exhibit or show boastingly; to ostentate.

Noun (1)

UK/ɒˈstɛnt/US/ɑˈstɛnt/

ostent (plural ostents)

  1. (archaic, rare) A display, an exhibition; an appearance, a manifestation.
    • Vſe all the obſeruance of ciuility, / Like one well ſtudied in a ſad oſtent / To pleaſe his Grandam, neuer truſt me more.c. 1596–1598 (date written), W[illiam] Shakespeare, The Excellent History of the Merchant of Venice. […] (First Quarto), [London]: […] J[ames] Roberts [for Thomas Heyes], published 1600, →OCLC, [Act...
    • Be merry, and employ your cheefeſt thoughts / To Courtſhip, and ſuch faire oſtents of loue, / As ſhall conueniently become you there.c. 1596–1598 (date written), W[illiam] Shakespeare, The Excellent History of the Merchant of Venice. […] (First Quarto), [London]: […] J[ames] Roberts [for Thomas Heyes], published 1600, →OCLC, [Act...
  2. A boastful, ostentatious display or exhibition.

Noun (2)

ostent (plural ostents or ostenta)

  1. (archaic, rare) A portent, a token.
    • We ask'd of God that some ostent might clear / Our cloudy business, who gave us sign.1614–1615, Homer, “(please specify the book number)”, in Geo[rge] Chapman, transl., Homer’s Odysses. […], London: […] Rich[ard] Field [and William Jaggard], for Nathaniell Butter, published 1615...
    • Latinus, frighted with this dire ostent, / For counsel to his father Faunus went,1697, Virgil, “(please specify the book number)”, in John Dryden, transl., The Works of Virgil: Containing His Pastorals, Georgics, and Æneis. […], London: […] Jacob Tonson, […], →OCLC

Noun (3)

ostent (plural ostents)

  1. (historical, obsolete) One sixtieth of an hour: a minute (60 seconds).
    • […] one would be inclined to suspect some confusion in Bede's information, seeing that 40 moments and 60 ostents both are equal to an hour. I cannot find an example of the use of ostentum as a measure of time before Bede, and it is first used as one-sixtieth of an hour in 978 A.D. by Alcuin, who...1926 [????], Roger Bacon, Opera hactenus inedita Rogeri Baconi..., page 291
    • As listed in the Oxford English Dictionary under atom, the hour in the table of Papias contained either 5 points, 10 minutes, 15 parts, 40 moments, 60 ostents, [or] 480 ounces[…]2010 November 1, Samuel L. Macey, The Dynamics of Progress: Time, Method, and Measure, University of Georgia Press, →ISBN, page 17

Examples of ostent in a sentence

  • In every object, mountain, tree and star—In every birth and life, / As part of each—evolv'd from each—meaning, behind the ostent, / A mystic cipher waits infolded.1891, Walt Whitman, “2d Annex. Good-Bye my Fancy: Shakespere-Bacon’s Cipher”, in Leaves of Grass […], Philadelphia, Pa.: David McKay...
  • […] one would be inclined to suspect some confusion in Bede's information, seeing that 40 moments and 60 ostents both are equal to an hour.1926 [????], Roger Bacon, Opera hactenus inedita Rogeri Baconi..., page 291:

Synonyms of ostent

22 more synonymsFewer synonyms

All synonyms of ostent

Forms of ostent

Verb
third-person singular presentostents
present participleostenting
past participleostented
pastostented
Noun
pluralostents
pluralostenta

Origin of ostent

From Middle French ostenter (“to make an ostentatious display of”), or directly from its etymon Latin ostentāre (“to exhibit, present, show; to show off”), frequentative of ostendere (“to exhibit, show”), from ob- (prefix meaning ‘against; towards’) + tendere (“to extend, stretch; to distend”) (from Proto-Indo-European *tend- (“to extend, stretch”)). Doublet of ostentate.

From Latin ostentus (“a display, exhibition, show”), from ostendere (“to exhibit, show”); see further at etymology 1.

From Middle French ostente (“amazing or marvellous thing; prodigy, wonder”) or directly from its etymon Latin ostentum (“portent”), from ostendere (“to exhibit, show”); see further at etymology 1. The plural form ostenta is from Latin ostenta.

Questions about ostent

What does ostent mean?
Ostent means to make an ambitious display of; to exhibit or show boastingly; to ostentate.
How do you use ostent in a sentence?
In every object, mountain, tree and star—In every birth and life, / As part of each—evolv'd from each—meaning, behind the ostent, / A mystic cipher waits infolded.
What part of speech is ostent?
Ostent can be a verb or a noun.
How do you pronounce ostent?
Ostent is pronounced /ˈɒstɛnt/ (UK).
What is the past tense of ostent?
The past tense of ostent is ostented.

Words near ostent in the dictionary

  1. ostensories
  2. ostensorio
  3. ostensorios
  4. ostensorium
  5. ostensory
  6. ostent
  7. ostenta
  8. ostentacious
  9. ostentate
  10. ostentated
  11. ostentates

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: ostent (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.

Last updated:

Pronunciation audio from Wikimedia Commons, each file under its own free license: LL-Q1860 (eng)-Vealhurl-ostente.wav.

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