OSTENTATION

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 Dictionary entry overview: What does ostentation mean? 

• OSTENTATION (noun)
  The noun OSTENTATION has 3 senses:

1. a gaudy outward display

2. lack of elegance as a consequence of being pompous and puffed up with vanity

3. pretentious or showy or vulgar display

  Familiarity information: OSTENTATION used as a noun is uncommon.

 Dictionary entry details 

• OSTENTATION (noun)

Sense 1

Meaning:

A gaudy outward display

Classified under:

Nouns denoting communicative processes and contents

Synonyms:

fanfare; flash; ostentation

Hypernyms ("ostentation" is a kind of...):

display (exhibiting openly in public view)

Hyponyms (each of the following is a kind of "ostentation"):

bluster; bravado (a swaggering show of courage)

exhibitionism (extravagant and conspicuous behavior intended to attract attention to yourself)

ritz (ostentatious display of elegance)

splurge (an ostentatious display (of effort or extravagance etc.))

pedantry (an ostentatious and inappropriate display of learning)

Derivation:

ostentate (display proudly; act ostentatiously or pretentiously)

ostentatious (intended to attract notice and impress others)

Sense 2

Meaning:

Lack of elegance as a consequence of being pompous and puffed up with vanity

Classified under:

Nouns denoting attributes of people and objects

Synonyms:

inflation; ostentation; ostentatiousness; pomposity; pompousness; pretentiousness; puffiness; splashiness

Hypernyms ("ostentation" is a kind of...):

inelegance (the quality of lacking refinement and good taste)

Sense 3

Meaning:

Pretentious or showy or vulgar display

Classified under:

Nouns denoting attributes of people and objects

Hypernyms ("ostentation" is a kind of...):

largeness; pretension; pretentiousness (the quality of being pretentious (behaving or speaking in such a manner as to create a false appearance of great importance or worth))

Derivation:

ostentate (display proudly; act ostentatiously or pretentiously)

ostentatious (intended to attract notice and impress others)

 Context examples 

He did it with great ostentation, glancing significantly at me the while.

(The Sea-Wolf, by Jack London)

But to be candid without ostentation or design—to take the good of everybody's character and make it still better, and say nothing of the bad—belongs to you alone.

(Pride and Prejudice, by Jane Austen)

There would have been either the ostentation of a coxcomb, or the evasions of a mind too weak to defend its own vanities.

(Emma, by Jane Austen)

I could not but observe that he had been peeling the lemons with his own clasp-knife, which, as became the knife of a practical settler, was about a foot long; and which he wiped, not wholly without ostentation, on the sleeve of his coat.

(David Copperfield, by Charles Dickens)

But it was not to be avoided: he made her feel that she was the object of all; though she could not say that it was unpleasantly done, that there was indelicacy or ostentation in his manner; and sometimes, when he talked of William, he was really not unagreeable, and shewed even a warmth of heart which did him credit.

(Mansfield Park, by Jane Austen)