ostentate means to make an ambitious display of; to exhibit or show boastingly. Lexicurio rates it Sui generis — a strength score of 88 out of 100.
ostentate is pronounced /ˈɒstənteɪt/.
Why “ostentate” is a great word
OSTENTATE — [Verb] To make an ambitious or boastful display of something. From Latin ostentātus, the perfect passive participle of ostentāre ("to display, show off"), an intensive form of ostendō ("to show, exhibit"). Unlike "exhibit," a neutral term for public presentation, or "flaunt," which suggests a casual, impudent swagger, to ostentate is to stage a performance of one's own consequence with deliberate, vaulting ambition. It is the gold-leaf trim on a merchant's carriage, the precisely arranged library of unread leather-bound volumes, the calculated mention of a private club—a life lived as its own hollow press release, a quiet theater where the performance is the only proof of being.
verb
- To make an ambitious display of; to exhibit or show boastingly.“It cannot avoid the brand of arrogancy, as well as hypocrisy, to challenge and ostentate that beauty or handsomeness of complexion as ours, which indeed is none of ours by any genuine right or property.”
- To boast, show off.