This week’s theme
Miscellaneous words

This week’s words
probative
jobbery
ostensible
fane
arable

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A.Word.A.Day

PRONUNCIATION:

(ah-STEN-suh-buhl)

MEANING:

adjective: Appearing as such; supposed.

ETYMOLOGY:

From French ostensible, from Latin ostendere (to show, stretch out), from ob- (in front of) + tendere (to stretch). Ultimately from the Indo-European root ten- (to stretch), which also gave us tense, tenet, tendon, tent, tenor, tender, pretend, extend, tenure, tetanus, hypotenuse, pertinacious, detente, countenance, distend, extenuate, tenable, tenuous, abstentious, and impertinent. Earliest documented use: 1743.

USAGE:

“Thoreau disdained his ostensible friends, once responding to a social invitation with the words ‘such are my engagements to myself, that I dare not promise.’”
Kathryn Schulz; Pond Scum; The New Yorker; Oct 19, 2015.

See more usage examples of ostensible in Vocabulary.com’s dictionary.

A THOUGHT FOR TODAY: