Definition of ostensive in English:
ostensive
adjective ɒˈstɛnsɪvəˈstɛnsɪv
1Directly demonstrative.
Example sentencesExamples
- Those results are ostensive evidence implying the contribution of apparent motion mechanisms to ILM perception.
- Nevertheless, while we might struggle to analyze ‘religion’, an ostensive project should be reasonably successful.
- Both texts direct the reader to attend to the saving and comforting power of God; both also provide ostensive biblical legitimization for Equiano's autobiography.
- 1.1Linguistics Denoting a way of defining by direct demonstration, e.g. pointing.
Derivatives
adverb
Drinking was ostensively forbidden under their roof, so Hemingway drank clandestinely in his room, drawing from a host of liberated Italian liqueurs hidden in his bookcases.
Example sentencesExamples
- There is no doubt that this ostensively highly intelligent audience received his lecture with enthusiasm and acclaim.
- How did these lists - which ostensively are trying to measure the same thing - get so dissimilar?
- Bishop is closer to the modernists on this front and closer, particularly, to what Altieri calls ‘the romantic values they were ostensively denying’.
- Foundationalist empiricism recognizes two source of meaning: some terms derive their meanings ostensively, by correlation with whatever is ‘directly presented’ in experience.
noun
How can certain stimuli signal their own intended ostensiveness, prior to the recipient's search for the relevance of the information that the stimulus allegedly singles out?
Origin
Mid 16th century: from late Latin ostensivus, from ostens- 'stretched out to view' (see ostensible).
Rhymes
apprehensive, coextensive, comprehensive, defensive, expensive, extensive, intensive, offensive, pensive, suspensive
Definition of ostensive in US English:
ostensive
adjectiveəˈstensivəˈstɛnsɪv
1Directly or clearly demonstrative.
Example sentencesExamples
- Those results are ostensive evidence implying the contribution of apparent motion mechanisms to ILM perception.
- Nevertheless, while we might struggle to analyze ‘religion’, an ostensive project should be reasonably successful.
- Both texts direct the reader to attend to the saving and comforting power of God; both also provide ostensive biblical legitimization for Equiano's autobiography.
- 1.1Linguistics Denoting a way of defining by direct demonstration, e.g., by pointing.
Origin
Mid 16th century: from late Latin ostensivus, from ostens- ‘stretched out to view’ (see ostensible).