ostent

See also: ôtent

English

Etymology 1

From Middle French ostenter (“to make an ostentatious display of”), or directly from its etymon Latin ostentāre, present active infinitive of ostentō (“to exhibit, present, show; to show off”), frequentative of ostendō (“to exhibit, show”), from ob- (prefix meaning ‘against; towards’) + tendō (“to extend, stretch; to distend”) (from Proto-Indo-European *tend- (“to extend, stretch”)).

Pronunciation

• (Received Pronunciation) IPA^(key): /ˈɒstɛnt/
• (General American) IPA^(key): /ˈɑstɛnt/
• Hyphenation: os‧tent

• Audio (Southern England):

  (file)

Verb

ostent (third-person singular simple present ostents, present participle ostenting, simple past and past participle ostented)

1. (transitive, intransitive, obsolete) To make an ambitious display of; to exhibit or show boastingly; to ostentate.

Etymology 2

From Latin ostentus (“a display, exhibition, show”), from ostendere, present active infinitive of ostendō (“to exhibit, show”); see further at etymology 1.

Pronunciation

• (Received Pronunciation) IPA^(key): /ɒˈstɛnt/
• (General American) IPA^(key): /ɑˈstɛnt/, /ə-/
• Hyphenation: os‧tent

Noun

ostent (plural ostents)

1. (archaic, rare) A display, an exhibition; an appearance, a manifestation.
   • c. 1596–1598 (date written), W[illiam] Shakespeare, The Excellent History of the Merchant of Venice. […] (First Quarto), [London]: […] J[ames] Roberts [for Thomas Heyes], published 1600, →OCLC, [Act II, scene ii]:

     Vſe all the obſeruance of ciuility, / Like one well ſtudied in a ſad oſtent / To pleaſe his Grandam, neuer truſt me more.

   • c. 1596–1598 (date written), W[illiam] Shakespeare, The Excellent History of the Merchant of Venice. […] (First Quarto), [London]: […] J[ames] Roberts [for Thomas Heyes], published 1600, →OCLC, [Act II, scene viii]:

     Be merry, and employ your cheefeſt thoughts / To Courtſhip, and ſuch faire oſtents of loue, / As ſhall conueniently become you there.

   • 1891, Walt Whitman, “2d Annex. Good-Bye my Fancy: Shakespere-Bacon’s Cipher”, in Leaves of Grass […], Philadelphia, Pa.: David McKay, publisher, […], published 1892, →OCLC, page 412:

     In every object, mountain, tree and star—In every birth and life, / As part of each—evolv'd from each—meaning, behind the ostent, / A mystic cipher waits infolded.

2. A boastful, ostentatious display or exhibition.

Etymology 3

From Middle French ostente (“amazing or marvellous thing; prodigy, wonder”) or directly from its etymon Latin ostentum (“portent”), from ostendere, present active infinitive of ostendō (“to exhibit, show”); see further at etymology 1.

The plural form ostenta is from Latin ostenta.

Pronunciation

• (Received Pronunciation) IPA^(key): /ˈɒstɛnt/
• (General American) IPA^(key): /ˈɑstɛnt/
• Hyphenation: os‧tent

Noun

ostent (plural ostents or ostenta)

1. (archaic, rare) A portent, a token.
   • 1614–1615, Homer, “(please specify the book number)”, in Geo[rge] Chapman, transl., Homer’s Odysses. […], London: […] Rich[ard] Field [and William Jaggard], for Nathaniell Butter, published 1615, →OCLC; republished in The Odysseys of Homer, […], volumes (please specify the book number), London: John Russell Smith, […], 1857, →OCLC:

     We ask'd of God that some ostent might clear / Our cloudy business, who gave us sign.

     The spelling has been modernized.

   • 1697, Virgil, “(please specify the book number)”, in John Dryden, transl., The Works of Virgil: Containing His Pastorals, Georgics, and Æneis. […], London: […] Jacob Tonson, […], →OCLC:

     Latinus, frighted with this dire ostent, / For counsel to his father Faunus went,

Etymology 4

Perhaps from Latin ostentum.

Noun

ostent (plural ostents)

1. (obsolete or historical) One sixtieth of an hour: a minute (60 seconds).
   • 1926 [????], Roger Bacon, Opera hactenus inedita Rogeri Baconi..., page 291:

     […] 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.

     (please add an English translation of this quotation)

   • 2010 November 1, Samuel L. Macey, The Dynamics of Progress: Time, Method, and Measure, University of Georgia Press, →ISBN, page 17:

     As listed in the Oxford English Dictionary under atom, the hour in the table of Papias contained either 5 points, 10 minutes, 15 parts, 40 moments, 60 ostents, [or] 480 ounces […]

Usage notes

• Distinguished in medieval times from the "minute" that was one tenth of an hour, or six modern minutes.

Anagrams

• notest, Totnes, teston, Stoten, Ettons, Teston, Tetons, Ottens