ostensibly

[ o-sten-suh-blee ]

adverb

1. in appearance only; supposedly:

   The event was ostensibly for charity, but he mainly used it to promote his new book.

Other Words From

• non·os·ten·si·bly adverb
• un·os·ten·si·bly adverb

Word History and Origins

Origin of ostensibly¹

First recorded in 1760–70; ostensib(le) ( def ) + -ly ( def )

Example Sentences

In 2017, it alienated customers by deliberately but quietly slowing the performance of older iPhones via a software update, ostensibly to spare the life of aging batteries.

From Fortune

Yet he apparently had no such qualms a week later when he signed a decree mandating that telecoms hand over data on 226 million Brazilians to IBGE, the government’s statistical agency, ostensibly for surveying households during the pandemic.

From MIT Technology Review

If it does not, candidates could ostensibly sue their rivals for claiming the paper’s endorsement and not just the endorsement of the Union-Tribune’s editorial board.

From Voice of San Diego

Researchers elicited anxiety among the women by giving them three minutes to put together a speech on their flood preparedness — natural disasters are a common threat to the island — to ostensibly be evaluated later by government experts.

From Science News

To submit a number of bogus academic papers to ostensibly serious academic journals in those fields … and show how easily unsupported claims could be presented as factual without reasonable proofs.

From Ozy

Sorkin may not have won his fight, ostensibly to reform the news.

From The Daily Beast

The uncle told RTL radio Hauchard called his grandmother, ostensibly from Syria, on Nov. 2, for her birthday.

From The Daily Beast

Ostensibly meant to protect babies, these products are dangerous.

From The Daily Beast

In June, Pakistan launched an all-out military offensive in the region, ostensibly to evict all the militants from the area.

From The Daily Beast

And while there are cutscenes that ostensibly explain the grander narrative, nothing really makes sense.

From The Daily Beast

Every act of the Americans, ostensibly as courtesy and friendship, tend to that end.

From Project Gutenberg

The thing was ostensibly done, and served very well to hide an exclamation of surprise.

From Project Gutenberg

Yet, though ostensibly free, these local bodies are practically in the power of the political wire-puller, or cacique.

From Project Gutenberg

In Kent there had been an p. 29alarming outbreak of the peasantry, ostensibly against the use of agricultural machinery.

From Project Gutenberg

But what we tolerate in uncivilized lands, even where we are ostensibly rulers, we will not suffer in our own.

From Project Gutenberg

Related Words

• evidently
• officially
• seemingly
• supposedly