ostent
/ˈɒstɛnt/
Etymology
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.
ostent means to make an ambitious display of; to exhibit or show boastingly; to ostentate. Lexicurio rates it Sui generis — a strength score of 88 out of 100.
ostent is pronounced /ˈɒstɛnt/.
Why “ostent” is a great word
OSTENT — [Verb/Noun] To make an ambitious or boastful display of; to exhibit showily; or, such a display itself, historically also a portent or significant sign. From Middle French ostenter or directly from its etymon Latin ostentāre ("to exhibit, show off"), a frequentative of ostendere ("to show"), from ob- ("towards") + tendere ("to stretch, extend"). Unlike "flaunt," which implies a shameless, vulgar bid for admiration, or its own doublet "ostentate," a rarer synonym, "ostent" carries the formal, antiquated air of vaunting ambition and the nounly gravity of an omen. It is the heavy unfurling of a banner before a doomed army, the gilded but empty coffers of a bankrupt prince left on display, or the peculiar stillness that is both a boast of coming storm and the storm itself—a performance stretched so taut it becomes a sign of what is already broken.
verb
- To make an ambitious display of; to exhibit or show boastingly; to ostentate.
noun
- A display, an exhibition; an appearance, a manifestation.“Vſe all the obſeruance of ciuility, / Like one well ſtudied in a ſad oſtent / To pleaſe his Grandam, neuer truſt me more.”
- A boastful, ostentatious display or exhibition.
- A portent, a token.“We ask'd of God that some ostent might clear / Our cloudy business, who gave us sign.”
- One sixtieth of an hour: a minute (60 seconds).“[…] one would be inclined to suspect some confusion in Bede's information, seeing that 40 moments and 60 ostents both are equal to an hour. I cannot find an example of the use of ostentum as a measure of time before Bede, and it is first used as one-sixtieth of an hour in 978 A.D. by Alcuin, who knows a double use.”