noun · verb · 5 senses · updated from the 2026-07-25 local source snapshot
Definitions and examples are grouped by meaning. Pronunciation, history, word forms, translations, descendants, synonyms, antonyms, derived terms, and related words appear whenever the source provides them.
Sound
Pronunciation
Each Play button uses your device's default local English voice, or a natural local fallback. The selected voice name appears after playback. This is synthesized speech, not a source recording.
Received-Pronunciation:/ɒˈstɛnt/
General-American:/ɑˈstɛnt/
General-American:/ə-/
Received-Pronunciation:/ˈɒstɛnt/
General-American:/ˈɑstɛnt/
Southern-England:Recorded audio is listed in the source snapshot.
1
noun
Meaning 1
A display, an exhibition; an appearance, a manifestation.
Definition source: English Wiktionary via Wiktextract
Usage: archaic, rare
No example sentence was provided for this meaning.
Meaning relationships
Synonyms: none provided
Antonyms: none provided
2
noun
Meaning 2
A boastful, ostentatious display or exhibition.
Definition source: English Wiktionary via Wiktextract
No example sentence was provided for this meaning.
Meaning relationships
Synonyms: none provided
Antonyms: none provided
3
noun
Meaning 3
A portent, a token.
Definition source: English Wiktionary via Wiktextract
Usage: archaic, rare
No example sentence was provided for this meaning.
Meaning relationships
Synonyms: none provided
Antonyms: none provided
4
noun
Meaning 4
One sixtieth of an hour: a minute (60 seconds).
Definition source: English Wiktionary via Wiktextract
Usage: historical, obsolete
No example sentence was provided for this meaning.
Meaning relationships
Synonyms: none provided
Antonyms: none provided
5
verb
Meaning 5
To make an ambitious display of; to exhibit or show boastingly; to ostentate.
Definition source: English Wiktionary via Wiktextract
Usage: ambitransitive, obsolete
No example sentence was provided for this meaning.
Meaning relationships
Synonyms: demonstrate, display, ostentate, manifest, exhibitionize, preen, strut, aura farm, boulevardier, cut a wide swath, cut it fat, cut round, figure away, flamboast, flaunt, flex, floss, fluff one's feathers, gallery, high-side, let one's nuts hang, ostent, showboat, show away, show off, strut one's stuff, stunt, swag it out, swagger, swank, three-sheet, venditate, yaya
Antonyms: none provided
History
Etymology
From Latin ostentus (“a display, exhibition, show”), from ostendere (“to exhibit, show”); see further at etymology 1.
From Middle French ostente (“amazing or marvellous thing; prodigy, wonder”) or directly from its etymon Latin ostentum (“portent”), from ostendere (“to exhibit, show”); see further at etymology 1. The plural form ostenta is from Latin ostenta.
Perhaps from Latin ostentum.
From Middle French ostenter (“to make an ostentatious display of”), or directly from its etymon Latin ostentāre (“to exhibit, present, show; to show off”), frequentative of ostendere (“to exhibit, show”), from ob- (prefix meaning ‘against; towards’) + tendere (“to extend, stretch; to distend”) (from Proto-Indo-European *tend- (“to extend, stretch”)). Doublet of ostentate.