| 释义 |
ostensible, a. (n.)|ɒˈstɛnsɪb(ə)l|
[a. F. ostensible (1740 in Dict. Acad.), ad. L. type *ostensibil-is (med.L. in Laws Hen. I. c. 80 §11), f. ostens-, ppl. stem of ostendĕre: see ostend.]
†1. That may be shown, exhibited, or presented to view, hence, presentable; also, made or prepared to be shown. Obs.
1762–71H. Walpole Vertue's Anecd. Paint. (1786) II. 140 [Rubens] was called to Paris by Mary de' Medici, and painted the ostensible history of her life in the Luxemburgh. 1783Ld. Temple Let. 2 Apr. in Dk. Buckhm. Crt. Geo. III (1853) I. 226, I wish you to write me an ostensible letter..upon the conduct of the Portuguese. 1798Bay Amer. Law Rep. (1809) I. 92 B. was the only ostensible person in the country, P. having gone off, and C.'s estate not being sufficient to make good the loss. a1805A. Carlyle Autobiog. i. (1860) 31 He took great pains to make them (especially the first, for the second was hardly ostensible) appear among his best scholars. 1828Bentham Wks. (1843) X. 591 You should..send me two letters—one confidential, another ostensible.
†2. That presents itself to view or shows itself off; open to public view; conspicuous, ostentatious. Obs.
1782in Ld. Macartney's Life &c. (1807) I. 144 Were we to adopt the ostensible and artificial language of that prudence which [etc.]. 1803Mrq. Wellesley Let. to A. Wellesley 26 June in Owen Desp. (1877) 302 The most direct and even ostensible interposition of the British authority. 1809Malkin Gil Blas x. ii. ⁋12 He has been in an ostensible situation..and his father ought to be buried with all the forms of state. 1828Ld. Grenville Sink. Fund 29 Which..can exhibit to us only the outward and ostensible workings of this complicated mechanism.
3. Declared, avowed, professed; exhibited or put forth as actual and genuine: often implicitly or explicitly opposed to ‘actual’, ‘real’, and so = merely professed, pretended.
1771Junius Lett. liv. 289 The best of princes is not displeased with the abuse which he sees thrown upon his ostensible Ministers. 1786Burke W. Hastings Wks. 1842 II. 119 A party of British and other troops, with the nabob in the ostensible, and the British resident in the real, command. 1837H. Martineau Soc. Amer. III. 269 There will be less that is ostensible and more that is genuine, as they grow older. 1848C. Brontë J. Eyre x. (1873) 85 My ostensible errand on this occasion was to get measured for a pair of shoes. 1874Green Short Hist. vii. §4. 381 Her ostensible demand was for English aid in her restoration to the throne.
B. as n. in pl. Ostensible matters.
1861J. Pycroft Agony Point xxiii. (1862) 231 When all these positive essentials and ostensibles were so respectably witnessed. |