ostentation

plural ostentations

1. uncountableusuallyAmbitious display; vain show; display intended to excite admiration or applause.

   1 more example

   Sir Henry had consumed his substance in ostentation and riotous hospitality—had fed many at his board, made many merry in his halls, but not a friend was in his house of mourning; the very retainers who had grown rich upon his ruin, seemed to deem the burial of their master but a signal for carousing and license.

   1837, L[etitia] E[lizabeth] L[andon], Ethel Churchill: Or, The Two Brides. […], volume I, London: Henry Colburn, […], →OCLC, pages 24–25

2. collectiveuncountableusuallyA group of peafowl.

   At times there are more than 100 deer on his property and an ostentation of peacocks.

   2001, Business India, A.H. Advani, page 16

   2 more examples

   A full ostentation of peahens who it appeared had been drawn in by the sight of me in my feathered coat, mistaking me for an actual peacock!

   2021, Sam Downes, Claude Des Forges, Fashion Follies, Rectangle Books

   Where else in the city can you closely watch an ostentation of peacocks dancing away blissfully without a care in the world or a Kingfisher dive into the lake to devour its meal or even a tree pie watching you from the window ledge?

   2006, Wildlife and Biodiversity @ ICRISAT, International Crops Research Institute for the Semi-Arid Tropics, page vi

3. obsoleteuncountableusuallyA show or spectacle.

   Let her awhile be secretly kept in, And publish it that she is dead indeed: Maintain a mourning ostentation

   1598–1599 (first performance), William Shakespeare, “Much Adoe about Nothing”, in Mr. William Shakespeares Comedies, Histories, & Tragedies […] (First Folio), London: […] Isaac Iaggard, and Ed[ward] Blount, published 1623, →OCLC, [Act IV, scene i]