Word.ws English Dictionary

How to use ostensibly in a sentence

34 example sentences · adverb

Ostensibly means seemingly, apparently, on the surface; supposedly, according to representations or implications made by someone (especially when their motives are suspected by others). Example: “His interest in the railway was ostensibly a hobby, but people began wondering why he was taking photos of specific trains and specific equipment.”

Examples of ostensibly by meaning

adverbSeemingly, apparently, on the surface; supposedly, according to representations or implications made by someone...

  • Near-synonyms: reportedly, reputedly, purportedly, putatively, rumoredly, supposedly, allegedly, possibly, probably, likely, plausibly, presumably; see also Thesaurus:ostensibly
  • His interest in the railway was ostensibly a hobby, but people began wondering why he was taking photos of specific trains and specific equipment.
  • Her interest in his welfare was ostensibly charitable and magnanimous, but people began wondering who was going to inherit his assets when he died.

More sentences with ostensibly

  • Some of them tried-and-true copypasta, these narratives often include images, annotated instructions, or other ostensibly helpful information.2018, Whitney Phillips, Ryan M. Milner, The Ambivalent Internet […] , John Wiley & Sons, →ISBN, page 158. From the entry copypasta
  • The choice of such non-entities in ostensibly important positions betrays their servile role.2016 July, Gerard Minuhin, Tell the Truth and Shame the Devil: Recognize the True Enemy and Join to Fight Him, 2nd edition, Uckfield…. From the entry non-entity
  • Secondary religions or counterreligions are duplicitous: they bear encrypted within themselves the paganism they ostensibly reject.2009, Jan Assmann, The Price of Monotheism. From the entry counterreligion
  • The two states are ostensibly in the same time zone, but New South Wales observes daylight saving, and Queensland doesn't.2025 November 12, Vitali Vitaliev, “Time travelling”, in RAIL, number 1048, page 68. From the entry New Year's Eve
  • There is nothing left wing about alternative medicine, the rejection of scientific research or ostensibly anti-authoritarian stances against state regulation.2021 October 20, Vashti Fox, “It’s time to confront the anti-vaccination far right”, in Red Flag, archived from the original on 21 Oct 2021. From the entry conspiritualism
  • Navy officer who'd made alterations, ostensibly for "improper maintenance" of the Mark 14, which, they continued to insist, was absolutely fine.2020 February 12, Drachinifel, 15:22 from the start, in The Mark 14 Torpedo - Failure is Like Onions, archived from the original on 24 Nov…. From the entry real world
  • Ostensibly a ten-year-anniversary event, the rerelease also happened to coincide with Donald Trump's presidential candidacy and the impending U.S. election.2018, Nicole Seymour, Bad Environmentalism, page 39. From the entry rerelease
  • After all, that is exceedingly common in the US today, and it's even made inroads among ostensibly Orthodox Jews.2006 June 9, Lisa, “LESBIAN & GAY SHABBAT DINNER - 5 JUNE -- RODEPH SHOLOM (NYC)”, in soc.culture.jewish.moderated (Usenet). From the entry negiah
  • Maybe it's the cellular whatevers that go into those phones you see people ostensibly talking into while driving automobiles.1993 August 28, Russell Baker, “Observer; Man Here Can't Jubilate”, in New York Times. From the entry whatevers
  • This was ostensibly done, the bill rendered and paid for.1928, Advertising & Selling, volume 12, M.C. Robbins, page 38. From the entry recharge one's battery
  • This study ostensibly examines a purported novel SARS-CoV-2 variant, dubbed the Omega variant, showcasing 31 unique mutations in the S gene region.2024 February 4, Malik Sallam, Rainer Roehrig, Behrus Puladi, “Navigating the Peril of Generated Alternative Facts: A ChatGPT-4 Fabricated…. From the entry Omega variant
  • Ostensibly, the end of a relationship opens up a fresh new chapter in Marcus’s life, but he radiates woeful levels of divorced-guy energy.2021 October 28, Iana Murray, “Love Life Recap: Ass Time”, in Vulture, archived from the original on 29 Oct 2021. From the entry divorced-guy energy
  • The ad, ostensibly about DeMaio’s stance on immigration and President Trump, includes two gratuitous references to the fact that DeMaio is gay.2020 January 29, “Editorial: Darrell Issa’s shameful gay-baiting attack ads are the worst kind of time warp”, in Los Angeles Times. From the entry gaybait
  • The violence began when Serbian troops went into Croatia ostensibly to aid armed ethnic Serbians trying to create their own autonomous states there.2015 February 3, Greg Botelho, “U.N. court: Serbs’ actions in Croatia not considered genocide”, in CNN, archived from the original on 04…. From the entry Croatia
  • That is the underlying cultural reason they will cherry-pick their symptoms and the facts into their ostensibly rational argument against smart meters.”2011 February 1, Felicity Barringer, “Are We Hard-Wired to Doubt Science?”, in The New York Times. From the entry hierarchist
  • My mouth opened, ostensibly to tell him to stop this right now, I refused to kanoodle with anyone who wasn't my true love.2007 November, Jackie Kessler, “Paul’s Apartment”, in The Road to Hell, 1st mass-market paperback edition, New York, N.Y.: Zebra Books…. From the entry kanoodle
  • This was done ostensibly to make sure the telephone line was in good order, but really to ensure the dutyman was awake.2007, Dave Wilson, To Ride a Red Engine, →ISBN, page 50. From the entry dutyman
  • In other words, data are (re)constructed in the process of transcription as a result of multiple decisions that reflect both theoretical and ostensibly pragmatic considerations.2003, James Holstein, Jaber F. Gubrium, Inside Interviewing: New Lenses, New Concerns, SAGE, →ISBN, page 268. From the entry transcription
  • At a jeweller's on Union Square he paused, and turned in, ostensibly to order some cards; but passing out he stopped surreptitiously before the case of jewels.2024 January 2, Maud Wilder Goodwin, Flint His Faults, His Friendships and His Fortunes, BoD – Books on Demand, →ISBN, page 164. From the entry stramming
  • Su took the contract to the Lutsao Township Farmers’ Association, which granted him a NT$15 million loan, ostensibly to cover part of the mortgage for the property.2022 June 15, Jason Pan, “Chiayi city officials get 17 months in jail for fraud”, in Taipei Times, →ISSN, →OCLC, archived from the…. From the entry Lutsao
  • Their company Brücke (Bridge), ostensibly a therapeutic practice for patients with suicidal thoughts, is in reality just a front for an employment agency for suicide bombers.2019, Anne Fuchs, “Epilogue: Presentist Dystopias or the Case for Environmental Humanities”, in Precarious Times (Signale: Modern German…. From the entry post-democratic
  • Which is everywhere—being open-eared is ostensibly a sign of anti-racism (not really) and gender progressivism (also not really) and is at least slightly aligned with the tenets of poptimism.2014 December 9, Jon Caramanica, “Best albums and biggest rapper 2014: Jon Caramanica on J. Cole, Young Thug, Nicki Minaj, Bobby Shmurda…. From the entry open-eared
  • A film ostensibly about the lead singer of a hair metal band killing innocent people on a future planet Earth, Alienator is the epitome of low-budget cheese.2012 June 18, Ryan Lambie, “10 delightfully cheesy 90s sci-fi movie trailers”, in Den of Geek!, archived from the original on 07 Jul 2017. From the entry cheese
  • The bulk of questionable experimentation upon African Americans is not detailed here because much of it consists of aberrations in therapeutics that were ostensibly meant to cure.2008, Harriet A. Washington, “Introduction”, in Medical Apartheid, Knopf Doubleday Publishing Group, page 30. From the entry aberration
  • On the contrary: ever since the decline of the music halls, theatre had been the purview of the middling sort—even when the subject matter was ostensibly proletarian.2005, Tony Judt, “The Social Democratic Movement”, in Postwar: A history of Europe since 1945, London: Vintage Books, published 2010, →ISBN. From the entry middling sort
  • Its Windows CE, ostensibly for consumer electronics, is flailing, largely because Microsoft has taken a PC mentality to develop CE, unable to give up the ghost of its heritage.2000 January 14, Kevin Maney, “Gates closes an era Microsoft prepares to lay out a road map”, in USA Today. From the entry give up the ghost
  • While ostensibly a novel of first love and loss, Unusual Company may more fittingly be described as a tale of estrangement, of wary and mistimed passion.1987 December 13, Elizaeth Pincus, “Gritty Love”, in Gay Community News, volume 15, number 22, page 9. From the entry mistimed
  • The Aztecs have been “shown" to have been at one or another stage of various Marxoid evolutionary schemes by writers ostensibly using the same body of evidence.1983, Law and politics in Aztec Texcoco, page xiv. From the entry Marxoid
  • Tossing off malefactor, mausoleum and monarch with ready dispatch, Bierce soon came hand‐to‐paw with one of the most grapplesome words of his time, the ostensibly innocuous noun monkey.1968, LIFE - Vol. 65, No. 21: Evolution Revolution in Arkansas. From the entry grapplesome
  • The crowds of besuited men and millinered women going about their affairs ostensibly as in peacetime and watching the scene cannot remain unaffected by the consequences of what they see.2008, Kevin Brown, “Business Not as Usual”, in Fighting Fit: Health, Medicine and War in the Twentieth Century, Stroud, Gloucestershire…. From the entry milliner
  • What interests me most is the phenomenological sense of embodiedness these objects project — the sense they give of the body's implication, its embeddedness, in ostensibly separate objects of perception.2001, Alexander Nemerov, The Body of Rafaelle Peale. From the entry embodiedness

Meaning of ostensibly

  1. adverb Seemingly, apparently, on the surface; supposedly, according to representations or implications made by someone (especially when their motives are suspected by others).

Full definition of ostensibly

Questions about ostensibly in a sentence

How do you use ostensibly in a sentence?
Ostensibly is used as an adverb. For example: “His interest in the railway was ostensibly a hobby, but people began wondering why he was taking photos of specific trains and specific equipment.”
What is a short sentence with ostensibly?
“This was ostensibly done, the bill rendered and paid for.”
What does ostensibly mean?
Ostensibly means seemingly, apparently, on the surface; supposedly, according to representations or implications made by someone (especially when their motives are suspected by others).

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: ostensibly (page history and authors) and the entries each sentence comes from. Text available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 license. Word.ws chose the sentences, left out offensive ones and quotations older than 1900, and marked the word in each. Wiktionary data of 2026-09-02.

Last updated:

Cite this page: “How to use ostensibly in a sentence.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/sentences/ostensibly. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.