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 Word Forms

• nonostensibly adverb
• unostensibly adverb

Word History and Origins

Origin of ostensibly¹

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

Example Sentences

The book is ostensibly “authored” by McCartney even though it is an oral history that has been edited by Ted Widmer, an estimable historian and a former speechwriter for Bill Clinton.

Read more on Los Angeles Times

The Pentagon has so far deployed seven warships to the Caribbean and one to the Gulf of Mexico, ostensibly for anti-drug operations.

Read more on Barron's

Romance is a bruising, brutal—and even nausea-inducing—business in “Let’s Love!,” a flimsy and forgettable evening of three ostensibly comic short plays by Ethan Coen at the Atlantic Theater Company.

Read more on The Wall Street Journal

Tt’s not the only organization ostensibly created to help right-wingers punish their critics that has flopped in the past month.

Read more on Salon

During the 1990s, Bill and Hillary Clinton fervently mapped out paths for poor women that would ostensibly make private enterprise the central solution to poverty.

Read more on Salon

Related Words

• evidently 
• officially 
• seemingly 
• supposedly