# ostent
## English
### Etymology 1

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”)).

#### Pronunciation

* (Received Pronunciation) IPA: /ˈɒstɛnt/
* (General American) IPA: /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)
* (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 (“to exhibit, show”); see further at etymology 1.

#### Pronunciation

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

#### Noun

ostent (plural ostents)
* (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,: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,: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.
* 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 (“to exhibit, show”); see further at etymology 1.
The plural form ostenta is from Latin ostenta.

#### Pronunciation

* (Received Pronunciation) IPA: /ˈɒstɛnt/
* (General American) IPA: /ˈɑstɛnt/
* Hyphenation: os‧tent

#### Noun

ostent (plural ostents or ostenta)
* (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, […], volume (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)
* (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.

### References

* ↑ “† ostent, v.”, in OED Online ⁠, Oxford: Oxford University Press, September 2004.
* ↑ “ostent, n.$^2$”, in OED Online ⁠, Oxford: Oxford University Press, September 2004.
* 1 2 “ostent, n.$^1$”, in OED Online ⁠, Oxford: Oxford University Press, September 2004.

### Anagrams

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