ostent

present singular third person ostents · participle present ostenting · participle past ostented · past ostented

1. ambitransitiveobsoleteTo make an ambitious display of; to exhibit or show boastingly; to ostentate.

   Synonyms: demonstrate, display, ostentate, manifest, exhibitionize, ostentate, preen, strut

plural ostents

1. archaicrareA display, an exhibition; an appearance, a manifestation.

   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 ii]

   2 more examples

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

   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]

   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.

   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

2. A boastful, ostentatious display or exhibition.

plural ostents · plural ostenta

1. archaicrareA portent, a token.

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

   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

   1 more example

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

   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

plural ostents

1. historicalobsoleteOne sixtieth of an hour: a minute (60 seconds).

   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[…]

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

   1 more example

   […] 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.

   1926 [????], Roger Bacon, Opera hactenus inedita Rogeri Baconi..., page 291