Word.ws English Dictionary

ostrichitis

ostrichitis noun: a policy of keeping one's head in the sand, denying the reality of a problem or threat.

Noun

ostrichitis (uncountable)

  1. (humorous) A policy of keeping one's head in the sand, denying the reality of a problem or threat.
    • War clouds were on the horizon, but the ostrichitis that had removed the moral compass of many European politicians simultaneously made the rich of Paris pretend that whatever nastiness was occurring elsewhere would never affect them.2018, Robert Lyman, Under a Darkening Sky: The American Experience in Nazi Europe: 1939-1941, New York: Pegasus Books, page 41

Origin of ostrichitis

From ostrich + -itis.

Questions about ostrichitis

What does ostrichitis mean?
Ostrichitis means a policy of keeping one's head in the sand, denying the reality of a problem or threat.
What part of speech is ostrichitis?
Ostrichitis is a noun.

Words near ostrichitis in the dictionary

  1. ostrich policy
  2. ostrich politics
  3. ostrich-like
  4. ostriches
  5. ostrichism
  6. ostrichitis
  7. ostrichize
  8. ostrichized
  9. ostrichizes
  10. ostrichizing
  11. ostrichlike

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: ostrichitis (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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