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Ostensibly   /ɑstˈɛnsəbli/   Listen
Ostensibly

adverb
1.
From appearances alone.  Synonyms: apparently, on the face of it, seemingly.  "The child is seemingly healthy but the doctor is concerned" , "Had been ostensibly frank as to his purpose while really concealing it" , "On the face of it the problem seems minor"






WordNet 3.0 © 2010 Princeton University








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"Ostensibly" Quotes from Famous Books



... length that as soon as the dusk came three of the boys, with the stranger wearing the clothes of the fourth, should ride out, ostensibly on the ...
— The Slowcoach • E. V. Lucas

... may seem, although Annie Conwell was considered clever and bright enough in general, and often stood head of her class, she seemed to have a wretched memory in regard to this parting injunction of her mother, or else there were ostensibly many good reasons for making exceptions to the rule. When, as sometimes happened, she entered the house some two hours after school was dismissed, and threw down her books upon the sitting-room table, Mrs. Conwell reproachfully ...
— Apples, Ripe and Rosy, Sir • Mary Catherine Crowley

... their predecessors, the Federalists, were ostensibly the party of national ideas. Their association began with a group of Jeffersonian Republicans who, after the second English war, sought to resume the interrupted work of national consolidation. The results of that war had clearly exposed certain grave deficiencies in the American national organization; ...
— The Promise Of American Life • Herbert David Croly

... private tutor, in 1815 he became connected with the Morgenblatt, published by Cotta, in Stuttgart. The year 1818 he spent in Italy. Soon after his return, he married, and established himself in Coburg, of which place, I believe, his wife was a native. Here he occupied himself ostensibly as a teacher, but in reality with an enthusiastic and untiring study of the Oriental languages and literature. Twice he was called away by appointments which were the result of his growing fame as poet and scholar,—the first time in 1826, when he was made ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 18, No. 105, July 1866 • Various

... people in England was with John Company and the better part of the Press to condemn Lord Ormont in his quarrel with the Commissioner of one of the Indian provinces, who had the support of the Governor of his Presidency and of the Viceroy; the latter not unreservedly, yet ostensibly inclined to condemn a too prompt military hand. The Gordian knot of a difficulty cut is agreeable in the contemplation of an official chief hesitating to use the sword and benefiting by having it done for him. Lord ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith

... had force and push. Martin's mind was made up. He would drop into the Independent ostensibly to extend his subscription, but really to get on more intimate terms with the woman whom he had now firmly determined should become his wife. He drew a deep breath of relaxation and finished the ...
— Dust • Mr. and Mrs. Haldeman-Julius

... play suggested to the actors by their own experience, in which the plot is transacted in the real lives of the actors, and not merely in their stage parts. The moving picture often emphasizes with great skill this double drama of interior motive and external behavior. Two men are quarreling, ostensibly about some money, but their passion is inexplicable. Then the picture fades out and what one or the other of the two men sees with his mind's eye is renacted. Across the table they were quarreling about ...
— Public Opinion • Walter Lippmann

... lived ostensibly by his profession, but actually upon the income of my cousin, Julia Dobree, who had been his ward from her childhood. The house we dwelt in, a pleasant one in the Grange, belonged to Julia; and fully half of the year's household expenses were ...
— The Doctor's Dilemma • Hesba Stretton

... nations; and inconsistent with its honour, because I will say, that its honour does depend on not exciting rebellions and insurrections in other nations, at the same moment that the government here is ostensibly at peace with those nations. Now, that is the ground on which I have always objected to a free press in Malta. I object to it, because I contend that the intention entertained is to have a free press, not for Malta, but for the neighbouring regions ...
— Maxims And Opinions Of Field-Marshal His Grace The Duke Of Wellington, Selected From His Writings And Speeches During A Public Life Of More Than Half A Century • Arthur Wellesley, Duke of Wellington

... probable that Gogol's hatred for the school curriculum inspired a passage in "Taras Bulba," though here he ostensibly described the ...
— Essays on Russian Novelists • William Lyon Phelps

... should have been enough—to say nothing here of his black servant. But the story of Kirkly is mentioned—and how mentioned? To rake up a malevolent or a thoughtless squib of the day, to make it appear that Sir Joshua shared in the gains of an exhibition ostensibly given to his servant. The joke is noticed by Northcote, and the exhibition, thus:—"The private exhibition of 1791, in the Haymarket, has been already mentioned, and some notice taken of it by a wicked wit, who, at the time, wished to insinuate that Sir Joshua ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Vol. 53, No. 331, May, 1843 • Various

... about the actual teaching and history of Confucius. The four books are: (i) The "Lun Yu," or the "Analects of Confucius," which contain chiefly the sayings and conversations of Confucius, and give, ostensibly in his own words, his teaching, and, in a subordinate degree, that of his principal disciples; (2) the "Ta-Hsio," or "Teaching for Adults," rendered also the "Great Learning," a treatise dealing with ethical and especially with political matters, ...
— The Worlds Greatest Books, Volume XIII. - Religion and Philosophy • Various

... said Helen later, going to Mary's room ostensibly to undress, but really to exchange those confidences without ...
— Mary Minds Her Business • George Weston

... just put his eye to the window of the president's room, ostensibly to find out whether Prexy was in a good humor and in reality to find out whether Kennedy, an old grad who had consented to play the part, was on duty, when one of the boys ...
— At Good Old Siwash • George Fitch

... no intimation given that the removal of the 3d and 4th regiments of infantry to the western border of Louisiana was occasioned in any way by the prospective annexation of Texas, but it was generally understood that such was the case. Ostensibly we were intended to prevent filibustering into Texas, but really as a menace to Mexico in case she appeared to contemplate war. Generally the officers of the army were indifferent whether the annexation was consummated or not; but not so all of them. For myself, I was bitterly opposed ...
— Memoirs of Three Civil War Generals, Complete • U. S. Grant, W. T. Sherman, P. H. Sheridan

... because its "the thing," and it is therefore particularly necessary to take it. Ostensibly, you go to view the scenery, really, to be inveigled into paying for a low comedy of a ...
— Punchinello, Vol. 1, No. 26, September 24, 1870 • Various

... Tennessee's Partner, whom we never knew by any other than this relative title. That he had ever existed as a separate and distinct individuality we only learned later. It seems that in 1853 he left Poker Flat to go to San Francisco, ostensibly to procure a wife. He never got any farther than Stockton. At that place he was attracted by a young person who waited upon the table at the hotel where he took his meals. One morning he said something to her which caused her to smile not unkindly, to somewhat coquettishly break a plate ...
— The Luck of Roaring Camp and Other Tales • Bret Harte

... assembled all over the country to make formal protests against the treaty. They were called ostensibly to "deliberate upon it," but they were frequently tumultuous, and always declamatory. A large meeting was held in Boston on the tenth of July. The chief actors there denounced the treaty as not containing one single article honorable or beneficial ...
— Washington and the American Republic, Vol. 3. • Benson J. Lossing

... Lane, Covent Garden," for such he was, goes on to recommend and enforce its importance in a variety of cajolling addresses, or, as he calls them, "charity-school sticks," to the great and wealthy; ostensibly the production of the boys, but in reality the concoctions of Mr. Blake, and in which he pleads earnestly for his hobby. In An Essay, or Humble Guess, how the Noble Ladies may be inclined to give to and encourage their Charity-school at Highgate, Mr. Blake ...
— Notes and Queries, Number 195, July 23, 1853 • Various

... later Japanese soldiers arrived to investigate and to put down the uprising. They found the people meeting again, ostensibly to honour one of their teachers. The soldiers immediately interfered, seized the leader of the meeting and led him away to the gendarme station. He was badly treated in the affray and the people were badly incensed. So they followed the soldiers to the station, ...
— Korea's Fight for Freedom • F.A. McKenzie

... existed a sort of armed truce. No open reference was made to the desertion of Lund on the floe. But Rainey knew that it rankled in Lund's mind. The five, Peggy Simms, her father, Carlsen, Lund and Rainey, ostensibly messed together, but Rainey's duties generally kept him on deck until Carlsen had sufficiently completed his own meal to relieve him. By that time the girl and the ...
— A Man to His Mate • J. Allan Dunn

... and I sent to him across the road some hot tea, bread, butter, and beef. This softened the heart and loosed the tongue of the old swagman. It appeared from his account of himself that he was not much of a blacksmith. He was ostensibly going about the colony looking for work, but as long as he could get food for nothing he did not want any work, and he always avoided a blacksmith's shop; as soon as he found himself near one he ceased to ...
— The Book of the Bush • George Dunderdale

... day, conveyed, with the help of whispered explanations and a violent exchange of notes, invitations to six other girls to join the new order. And after the close of school eight pupils elected to remain indoors, ostensibly to study; eight heads bent diligently over the long oak table in the library until a safe passage into the deserted halls above was assured. Then Gyp and Jerry led the new Ravens to the secret door where, in a sepulchral whisper, Gyp extracted a solemn promise from each that she would ...
— Highacres • Jane Abbott

... Britain, and residents of the colony; but the tax at length became a burden to them. In order to evade the law and escape the tax, they frequently went into Maryland and the Carolinas, and bought slaves, ostensibly for their own private use, but really to sell in the local market. To prevent this, an act was passed imposing a tax of twenty per centum on all such sales;[175] but there was a great outcry made against this act. Twenty per centum of the gross amount on ...
— History of the Negro Race in America From 1619 to 1880. Vol 1 - Negroes as Slaves, as Soldiers, and as Citizens • George W. Williams

... you're missed in a certain quarter, old fellow. I know a lady who would be more than delighted to see you. I am invited to her house to dinner, ostensibly to talk about our scheme, in reality ...
— The Colonel's Dream • Charles W. Chesnutt

... as art and part of the "Natural History Review," though not ostensibly one of the gang, so I bid you to a feast, partly of reason and partly of mutton, at my house on December 11 (being this day week) at half-past six. Do come if you can, for we have not seen your ugly old phiz for ages, and should be comforted by an inspection ...
— The Life and Letters of Thomas Henry Huxley Volume 1 • Leonard Huxley

... hand, Zeneyde—though unfinished, and though containing, in its ostensibly main story, things compared to which the Prince de Noisy and the Vicomte de Gonesse excite to palpitation—has points of remarkable interest about it. One of these—a prefatory sketch of the melancholy court of exiles at St. Germains—is like nothing else in Hamilton and ...
— A History of the French Novel, Vol. 1 - From the Beginning to 1800 • George Saintsbury

... asked. "Torture? Threats? These against my will? Absurd! Consider, my friend—even if I seemed to consent to the operations, could I not easily destroy the brains while ostensibly ...
— The Passing of Ku Sui • Anthony Gilmore

... arrive at a full appreciation of the family affairs until she had the house running and went down to put his office in order. Then, indeed, she learned at what cost had come those four expensive years in the East, and the truth left her limp. She went through Tom's dusty, disordered papers, ostensibly rearranging and filing them, and they told her much; what they did not tell her she learned from Judge Halloran and other old cronies who came in ...
— Flowing Gold • Rex Beach

... away from him, ostensibly to be nearer to the gas, but in reality that he might not see the crimson color which surged up into her face as she read. Mr. Pogson was as unscrupulous as fanatics invariably are. With a view of warning the public and ...
— We Two • Edna Lyall

... it, hungrily. The third day she was flashing meaning glances at him across the luncheon table. The fourth she pressed his foot beneath the table. The fifth, during Nettie's afternoon absence, she got up, ostensibly to look for a bit of cloth which she needed for sewing, and, passing him, laid a caressing hand on his shoulder. Laid it there and pressed his shoulder ever so little. He looked up, startled. The glances across the luncheon had largely passed over his head; the foot beneath the table might have ...
— Gigolo • Edna Ferber

... barbarous age; and, in at least one of its provisions, there seemed evidence that it was that of an intolerant age also: every pupil at school, without exemption, had his name entered on the subscription-list, as a cock-fighter, and was obliged to pay the master at the rate of twopence per head, ostensibly for leave to bring his birds to the pit; but, amid the growing humanities of a better time, though the twopences continued to be exacted, it was no longer imperative to bring the birds; and availing myself of the liberty I never brought any. Nor, save for a few ...
— My Schools and Schoolmasters - or The Story of my Education. • Hugh Miller

... Captain Barlow was sent—ostensibly as an assistant to the Resident, in reality to acquire full knowledge of the situation, and then go to the camp of Amir Khan with the delicate mission of persuading him not to join his riding spear-men to the Mahratta force, but to ...
— Caste • W. A. Fraser

... left in the woods by Moncrossen, ostensibly to guard the Blood River camp against pilfering Indians and chance forest fires, but his real mission was to keep watch on the bird's-eye until it could be safely ...
— The Promise - A Tale of the Great Northwest • James B. Hendryx

... altered your bearing towards me to this extent. I have no wish to interfere. I came back and gave up good company for the reason I have stated. I will now only point out that, with your sudden whims, you render my position excessively false in a house where, at your own wish, I am ostensibly established as master." ...
— The Light of Scarthey • Egerton Castle

... of the corn and walked resolutely toward the carabinieri. Hillard, equally resolute, followed, but with a roving eye which took in all things ostensibly save Bettina. He had a plan by which he proposed to circumvent any interference by the guardians. And Bettina aided him, for she never turned her head till she stood at the ...
— The Lure of the Mask • Harold MacGrath

... Court touched Clarendon through his daughter, the Duchess of York. The Duke was no model of connubial fidelity, and his lapses from virtue, if not so flagrant as those of his brother, yet gave food enough for gossiping tongues. But ostensibly his married life was fairly decorous, and against the Duchess no charges could be made. Her life, however, did not escape the gibes of those who sought to attack her father through her, and the trust ...
— The Life of Edward Earl of Clarendon V2 • Henry Craik

... to dinner that evening, he entered the grove, ostensibly to make a short call on Mrs. Hare. Barbara, on the tenterhooks of impatience, accompanied him outside when he departed, ...
— East Lynne • Mrs. Henry Wood

... a baker's shop, where he refreshed himself with some gingerbread and lemon soda. At an adjacent grocery he purchased some herrings, smoked beef, and biscuits, as future provisions for his "pack" or kit. Then began his real quest for an outfit. In an hour he had secured—ostensibly for some friend, to avoid curious inquiry—a pan, a blanket, a shovel and pick, all of which he deposited at the baker's, his unostentatious headquarters, with the exception of a pair of disguising ...
— A Waif of the Plains • Bret Harte

... allies had settled affairs at Paris, they reassembled at Vienna,—ostensibly to reconstruct the political system of Europe and secure a lasting peace; in reality, to divide among the conquerors the spoils taken from the vanquished. The Congress of Vienna,—in session from November, 1814, to June, 1815,—of which ...
— Beacon Lights of History, Volume IX • John Lord

... her when she went back to her room after breakfast, ostensibly to read, but really to think. Remembering Andrew Lanning, she got past the white face and the brilliant black eyes; she felt, looking back, that he had shown a restraint which was something more than boyish. When he took her ...
— Way of the Lawless • Max Brand

... dazed, as if someone had hit him a blow on the head. He had to remember what was this funny bounder's place in the newly-revealed scheme of things. Not merely a funny bounder after all, it seemed, but just what Cheriton had called him. But one couldn't let him know that one thought so; one was ostensibly on Hilary's side, against honesty, against decency, ...
— The Lee Shore • Rose Macaulay

... to put every one at ease. "No crime has been committed, so don't be nervous, any of you. Just a little private matter of—of" —His gaze went swiftly to the eager, uplifted face of little Kathleen, and he never completed the sentence. As he turned his face away, ostensibly to find his place in the book, his lower lip trembled, and a mist came ...
— Mr. Bingle • George Barr McCutcheon

... style which mark Edward Bellamy's early work. In all this there was a strong dominant note prophetic of the author's future activity. That note was a steadfast faith in the intrinsic goodness of human nature, a sense of the meaning of love in its true and universal sense. 'Looking Backward,' though ostensibly a romance, is universally recognized as a great economic treatise in a framework of fiction. Without this guise it could not have obtained the foothold that it did; there is just enough of the skillful novelist's ...
— Looking Backward - 2000-1887 • Edward Bellamy

... forbade that the queen should ostensibly accept the offer of a man who made her a widow ten weeks before. Therefore Bothwell waylaid the queen at the Brig of Almond, some miles from Edinburgh, dispersed her attendants, and carried her off to Dunbar. There ...
— Lectures on Modern history • Baron John Emerich Edward Dalberg Acton

... the old rancid butter left over in the grocery stores of a continent, and "oxidized" it by a forced-air process, to take away the odor, rechurned it with skim milk, and sold it in bricks in the cities! Up to a year or two ago it had been the custom to kill horses in the yards—ostensibly for fertilizer; but after long agitation the newspapers had been able to make the public realize that the horses were being canned. Now it was against the law to kill horses in Packingtown, and the law was really complied with—for the present, at any ...
— The Jungle • Upton Sinclair

... — Curtis has told the captain everything; for he persists in ostensibly recognizing him as his superior officer, and refuses to conceal from him our true situation. Captain Huntly received the communication in perfect silence, and merely passing his hand across his forehead as though to banish some distressing thought, re-entered ...
— The Survivors of the Chancellor • Jules Verne

... purpose, ostensibly, in view there are, as we saw, about 5,500,000 men in India who have given up all earthly employment, who live apart as ascetics and spend their time in roaming around the country as religious mendicants. These people are, in the main, ...
— India's Problem Krishna or Christ • John P. Jones

... sitting-room attached to her bed-chamber, where the temperature was regulated, and no draughts could penetrate, reclined Mrs. Ashton. Her invalid gown sat loosely upon her shrunken form, her delicate, lace cap shaded a fading face. Anne sat by her side in all her loveliness, ostensibly working; but her fingers trembled, and her ...
— Elster's Folly • Mrs. Henry Wood

... ostensibly to put aside her hat—really to warn Miss Payne—De Burgh strolled into the drawing-room. How cool and fresh and sweet with abundant flowers it was! An air of refined homeliness about it, the work and books and ...
— A Crooked Path - A Novel • Mrs. Alexander

... point, indeed, that the King, not daring to complain publicly against the Prince de Conti, who hated Vendome, for speaking in favour of Monseigneur de Bourgogne, reprimanded him sharply in reality for having done so, but ostensibly because he had talked about the affairs of Flanders at his sister's. Madame de Bourgogne did all she could to turn the current that was setting in against her husband; and in this she was assisted by Madame de Maintenon, who was annoyed to the last degree to see that other people had ...
— The Memoirs of Louis XIV., His Court and The Regency, Complete • Duc de Saint-Simon

... to keep her fingers out of the pie. She found herself naturally gravitating over to see Beatrice. Ostensibly she wanted to display her new ring and talk about Gay's luck and the daring gypsy embroideries he had just received from New York but really to tell her Steve O'Valley, supposedly enslaved cave man, loved another and a plainer woman ...
— The Gorgeous Girl • Nalbro Bartley

... A language (such as {{Pascal}}, {{Ada}}, APL, or Prolog) that, though ostensibly general-purpose, is designed so as to enforce an author's theory of 'right programming' even though said theory is demonstrably inadequate for systems hacking or even vanilla general-purpose programming. Often abbreviated 'B&D'; thus, ...
— The Jargon File, Version 4.0.0

... principle. And I dedicate the book to you because it would be strange if the time during which we have appeared in print side by side had brought no sense of comradeship. Though, in fact, we live far apart and seldom get speech together, more than one of these papers—ostensibly addressed to anybody whom they might concern—has been privately, if but sub-consciously, intended ...
— Adventures in Criticism • Sir Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch

... Though many lotteries were ostensibly for charitable, educational, or other beneficial purposes, the proportion of profit applied to such purposes was small. The Newbury Bridge Lottery sold ten thousand dollars' worth of tickets to raise one thousand dollars. The lottery to assist ...
— Customs and Fashions in Old New England • Alice Morse Earle

... the bile of the liver, girls. It makes no difference—in this case. There may have been a show of science. But it was to cover up a crime. Some one has been administering to Eugenia Atherton tablets of thyroid extract—ostensibly to aid her in fulfilling the dearest ambition of her soul—to become the mother of a new line of Athertons which might bear the same relation to the future of the country as the great family of the ...
— The War Terror • Arthur B. Reeve

... great house, and so minute a watch was kept, that the fact of Lord Ivinghoe's spending the whole day at the parsonage was known, and conclusions were arrived at. Maura stole down in the late evening among the olive trees, ostensibly to ask Anna and Francie to come and listen ...
— The Long Vacation • Charlotte M. Yonge

... accordingly, on the following morning, embarked in a small Indian canoe, similar to the one in which I had formerly travelled with two Indians in the North-West. My companions were—a Canadian, who acted as steersman; a genuine Patlander, who ostensibly acted as bowsman, but in reality was more useful in the way of ballast; and a young Newfoundland dog, which I had got as a present from Mr Stone ...
— Hudson Bay • R.M. Ballantyne

... thus extinct, and the second or Neutrals making now no separate appearance, the real division, if any, was into the Hamiltons and the Campbells. The division was not for the present very apparent, for Hamilton and his brother Lanark had not been ostensibly less urgent than Argyle and Loudoun that his Majesty would accept the Nineteen Propositions. But underneath this apparent accord his Majesty had discerned the slumbering rivalry, and the possibility of turning it to account. He had regained the Hamiltons. When ...
— The Life of John Milton Vol. 3 1643-1649 • David Masson

... Bishop Turner show that some white persons were willing to make unusual sacrifices to enlighten Negroes. President Scarborough began to attend school in his native home in Bibb County, Georgia, at the age of six years. He went out ostensibly to play, keeping his books concealed under his arm, but spent six or eight hours each day in school until he could read well and had mastered the first principles of geography, grammar, and arithmetic. At the age of ten he took regular lessons in writing under an old South Carolinian, ...
— The Education Of The Negro Prior To 1861 • Carter Godwin Woodson

... tyranness, after having examined the lithe, twisted rod critically for an instant, cast upon the object of her malice, probably banished the last lingering hesitation from the breast of the latter,—who turned away ostensibly to the performance of her accustomed duties, but in reality to settle the details of a crime unsurpassed in coolness and resolution by aught recorded of pirate or highwayman. It was probably during the hours immediately succeeding Captain Wilde's return ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 8, No. 48, October, 1861 • Various

... corner, bustled to the far end of the church, and commenced, with an assistant, turning out the lights on either side so rapidly that it seemed as if a wave of darkness was following those who had come thither ostensibly seeking light. ...
— A Knight Of The Nineteenth Century • E. P. Roe

... came, with Alfieri's assistance, the plan of escape was arranged. In the company of a lady friend—and also of her husband, now scared and penitent, but fearing to let her out of his sight—she drove to a neighbouring convent, ostensibly to inspect the nuns' needlework. On reaching her destination she ran up the convent steps, entered the building, and the door was slammed and bolted behind her in the very face of Charles Edward, who had followed as fast as his dropsical legs would carry him up the steps. ...
— Love affairs of the Courts of Europe • Thornton Hall

... Mugge's "Afraja." The gaard, however, is a single large estate, and not a name applied to the whole district, as those unfamiliar with Norsk nomenclature might suppose. Here the Catholics have established a mission—ostensibly a missionary boarding-house, for the purpose of acclimating arctic apostles; but the people, who regard it with the greatest suspicion and distrust, suspect that the ultimate object is the overthrow of their ...
— Northern Travel - Summer and Winter Pictures of Sweden, Denmark and Lapland • Bayard Taylor

... de Pompadour, the journal of this waiting-woman fell into the hands of M. de Marigny, brother of the favorite, with whom it remained in manuscript form for some years. It was finally published, in 1802, ostensibly as "Drawn from the Portfolio of the Marechale D—— by Soulavie"; but the French editors, MM. Vitrac and Galopin, assert that Soulavie only lent his name to the work. They also call attention to the fact that a History of Madame de Pompadour, by Mlle. Fouque, was published ...
— Memoirs And Historical Chronicles Of The Courts Of Europe - Marguerite de Valois, Madame de Pompadour, and Catherine de Medici • Various

... glorious day in September, the beautiful September of Canada, when the gallant Commodore Barclay sailed with his fleet, ostensibly in fulfilment on the mission for which it was dispatched, but in reality winder the firm expectation of being provoked to action by his stronger and better disciplined enemy. To say that he would have sought that enemy, under the disadvantages beneath which he knew himself to ...
— The Canadian Brothers - or The Prophecy Fulfilled • John Richardson

... the field by the arbitrary authority of the chieftains under whom they hewed wood and drew water, were in general very sparingly fed, ill dressed, and worse armed. The latter circumstance was indeed owing chiefly to the general disarming act, which had been carried into effect ostensibly through the whole Highlands, although most of the chieftains contrived to elude its influence by retaining the weapons of their own immediate clansmen, and delivering up those of less value, which they collected from these inferior satellites. ...
— Waverley, Or 'Tis Sixty Years Hence, Complete • Sir Walter Scott

... and down the avenues, his thoughts were not of the present, but of the past and future. At the earliest opportunity that day he had returned to the city, ostensibly, to attend to some telegraphic despatches, but his main errand had been to consult with an eminent lawyer whom he knew by reputation, and in whom both Hugh Mainwaring and Mr. Whitney, in numerous legal contests, had found a powerful and bitter opponent. To him Scott had intrusted his ...
— That Mainwaring Affair • Maynard Barbour

... readily because the garment was just about right; she left the room hastily, saying her bread would burn in the oven; and I thought I heard her giggling with Miss L. in Swedish until she ran away out into the woodshed, ostensibly for an armful of wood; though if her bread were already burning I wondered what ...
— A Woman who went to Alaska • May Kellogg Sullivan

... Ostensibly I was not present at these proceedings, and am ignorant of them; but I was where I could see. I was afraid of one thing— the jealousy of the other children of the post; but there is nothing of that, I am glad to say. On the contrary, they are proud of ...
— A Horse's Tale • Mark Twain

... cousin Griselda Campbell, whose body lay on the room on her left hand as she called down the stair. Into that on her right Miss Horn now re-entered, to rejoin Mrs Mellis, the wife of the principal draper in the town, who had called ostensibly to condole with her, but ...
— Malcolm • George MacDonald

... trial proceeded I gained an interesting side-light upon German methods and the mutual distrust which exists. Ostensibly, and so I was led to believe, none of the Tribunal spoke English with any fluency, but when, on one occasion, my interpreter was floored by a particularly difficult colloquialism which I uttered, the Clerk of the Court came to his aid, ...
— Sixteen Months in Four German Prisons - Wesel, Sennelager, Klingelputz, Ruhleben • Henry Charles Mahoney

... some blocks away. He suffered painful doubt about the note ostensibly from Nedda. The guards about the Embassy would have tried to catch him in any case, but it did seem very plausible that the note had been sent him to get him to try to get down the wall. On the other hand, a false descent of a palpably dummylike dummy had been plausible, too. He'd ...
— The Pirates of Ersatz • Murray Leinster

... sat in the chair beside him, ostensibly reading, but more often glancing sympathetically at the wan figure beside her. Frequently she seemed about to speak to him, but apparently hesitated about doing so, for the man took no notice of his fellow-passengers. At length, however, she mustered up courage to address him, and said: "There ...
— McClure's Magazine December, 1895 • Edited by Ida M. Tarbell

... day, when something had prevented him from seeing her; and unable to control his impatience, he had ridden over to the farm, this time ostensibly to see the farmer, and ask for another glass of his famous cider; this time, under the farmer's eyes even, he stopped and spoke ...
— A Mad Love • Bertha M. Clay

... anxiety that the mind of her son was intensely absorbed in thoughts which he did not reveal to her. On the morning of the 25th of October, 1836, Louis Napoleon bade adieu to his mother, and left Arenemberg in his private carriage, ostensibly to visit friends at Baden. A few days after, Hortense was plunged into the deepest distress by the reception of the ...
— Hortense, Makers of History Series • John S. C. Abbott

... spirit of a political alliance,—the solitary Orleans King, the shadowy Republic of '48, and the imperial government, all have endeavored to do something to elevate France, to win for her new glories, and to regain for her her old position. The expedition into Spain, in 1823, ostensibly made in the interest of Absolutism, was really undertaken for the purpose of rebaptizing the white flag in fire. Charles X. and M. de Polignac were engaged in a great scheme of foreign policy when they fell, the chief object of which, ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Vol. IV, No. 22, Aug., 1859 • Various

... again and again upon Dorothy, ostensibly to inquire after her mother. Only once, however, did she appear, when she gave him to understand she was so fully occupied, that, although obliged by his attention, he must not expect to ...
— St. George and St. Michael • George MacDonald

... of the magazine to Bok appeared to be the method of editing. It was ostensibly edited by a board, but, practically, by Professor Francis L. Patton, D.D., of Princeton Theological Seminary (afterward president of Princeton University), and Doctor Charles A. Briggs, of Union Theological Seminary. ...
— The Americanization of Edward Bok - The Autobiography of a Dutch Boy Fifty Years After • Edward William Bok

... more effectively to tax it. Under the necessary and proper clause, Congress may do this very thing. Not only has the Court sustained regulations concerning the packaging of taxed articles such as tobacco[262] and oleomargarine,[263] ostensibly designed to prevent fraud in the collection of the tax; it has also upheld measures taxing drugs[264] and firearms[265] which prescribed rigorous restrictions under which such articles could be sold or transferred, and imposed heavy penalties upon persons dealing with them in ...
— The Constitution of the United States of America: Analysis and Interpretation • Edward Corwin

... at my house in Cambridge, where he made himself as much at home as in Hartford. He would come ostensibly to stay at the Parker House, in Boston, and take a room, where he would light the gas and leave it burning, after dressing, while he drove out to Cambridge and stayed two or three days with us. Once, I suppose it was after a lecture, he came in evening dress ...
— Henry James, Jr. • William Dean Howells

... midst of the gathering, ostensibly warming his hands at the blaze of the fire. Gradually and naturally we took our appointed places, many of them customarily taken before this night so as to excite no suspicion at the final moment. And little did the destined victims of Bowani dream that behind ...
— Tales of Destiny • Edmund Mitchell

... carried in ten buck wagons with mule transport. The two companies D.C.L.I. formed a supporting column and followed later. In order to deceive the enemy, Pilcher on the previous day had made a feint from Belmont towards the Free State, returning ostensibly on the ground that a mistake had been made as to supply arrangements; the real object of the column was Douglas, and it had been arranged to cover Pilcher's right flank, by moving Babington with ...
— History of the War in South Africa 1899-1902 v. 1 (of 4) - Compiled by Direction of His Majesty's Government • Frederick Maurice

... explorers. De Quincey's writings on political economy are partially fragmentary; that is, they do not exhaust the subject as a whole, although thoroughly probing several capital points upon which the entire subject turns. Sometimes he ostensibly limits himself to elucidating and defending Ricardo's views; but the discussion is conducted with so much ease and force and fertility of resources, disclosing at times a depth of insight far outstripping that of his pretended master, that we cannot ...
— Continental Monthly , Vol. 5, No. 6, June, 1864 - Devoted to Literature and National Policy • Various

... evening, the tall, swarthy man who had come up on the Paul Revere sauntered slowly up and down that part of Main Street facing the Court House. Ostensibly he was inspecting store windows along the way, but in reality he was on the lookout for a man he had agreed to meet at a point just above the tavern,—a casual meeting, it was to appear, and between two strangers. ...
— Viola Gwyn • George Barr McCutcheon

... Here, ostensibly the victim of tuberculosis, he lingered a year to taste the bitterness of poverty and wretchedness. Then he died, and suffered the usual eulogy poured ...
— Forty-one Thieves - A Tale of California • Angelo Hall

... house, where in former days gay parties had assembled. But now the principal callers at the old house were the little fat priest, with a rosy smile, who looked after the aged lady's soul, of which she was most solicitous in these later days, and the Count de Propriac, who came ostensibly to see the elderly woman and chat about genealogy and extraction, but was obviously not unmindful of the presence of the young girl nor averse to seeking to mitigate her sorrow. Culver, the lawyer, too, came occasionally, to talk ...
— The Strollers • Frederic S. Isham

... the narrowness of its compass; that intensity gave fire to his gloomy eloquence, and strength to his obstinate will. He saw Lucretia, and his zeal for her conversion soon expanded into love for her person; yet that love was secondary to his covetousness. Though ostensibly in a flourishing business, he was greatly distressed for money to carry on operations which swelled beyond the reach of his capital; his fingers itched for the sum which Lucretia had still at her disposal. But the seeming sincerity of the man, the persuasion of his goodness, ...
— Lucretia, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton

... He paused, ostensibly to blow an elaborate smoke ring, but actually to enjoy McLean's astonishment. As astonishment, it was distinctly vivid. It verged upon a genuine horror as Ryder's meaning ...
— The Fortieth Door • Mary Hastings Bradley

... Denmark that, after two years of warfare, the Danish royal council and the representatives respectively of the municipalities, the nobility, and the clergy despatched a commission of thirty-two to Stralsund to sign a treaty, ostensibly in the name of their fugitive ruler—a treaty which may justly be said to mark the climax in the development of the power of ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, Volume VI. • Various

... vast margin of the empire. It is true that in part this attention might be interpreted as given politically to so many lieutenants, wielding a remote or inaccessible power for the benefit of Rome. And the children of these kings might be regarded as hostages, ostensibly entertained for the sake of education, but really as pledges for their parents' fidelity, and also with a view to the large reversionary advantages which might be expected to arise upon the basis of so early and affectionate a connection. But it is not the less true, that, at one period of his life, ...
— The Caesars • Thomas de Quincey

... characteristically reckless idea of coming back after he had left Sophy, buying the miniature at an extravagant price, and ordering half a dozen more at extraordinary figures. Here, however, two passers-by, stopping ostensibly to look in the window, but really attracted by the picturesque spectacle of the handsome young rustic and his schoolgirl companion, gave Jack such a fright that he hurried Sophy away again into the side street. "There's nothing mean about that picture business," he said cheerfully; "it looks like ...
— A Protegee of Jack Hamlin's and Other Stories • Bret Harte

... proceeds of the hunt could save the tribe from a famine. Women and children put on red wristbands to comfort their hearts in the prospective distress, for a winter without vegetable supplies was until then an unknown disaster. Say Koitza also placed strips of red buckskin around her arms. Ostensibly she mourned for her tribe; in reality it was to relieve her heart from the reproaches of her ...
— The Delight Makers • Adolf Bandelier

... have been reading of the murderous riots made in Northern cities, especially in New York, where men in mobs have ostensibly leagued against the authority of the Government. The bloody accounts are stirring the rank and file of our army terribly. A feeling of intense indignation exists against traitorous demagogues, who are undoubtedly at the bottom of all this ...
— Three Years in the Federal Cavalry • Willard Glazier

... endure no more delay, that she must herself go to Harry and do the one terrible thing which alone suited, met, and could save the situation. It was very horrible to her. Here was its last and irresistible fascination. Mina supplied Harry's address—ostensibly for the purpose of a letter; nothing else was necessary but ...
— Tristram of Blent - An Episode in the Story of an Ancient House • Anthony Hope

... insults, advice, or warnings, through the post for the benefit of the Queen's revenue. We generally pitch their puerile missives into the waste-paper basket; but occasionally we find one diverting enough to be introduced to our readers. A few days ago we received the following lugubrious epistle, ostensibly from a parson in Worcestershire, as the envelope ...
— Arrows of Freethought • George W. Foote

... step upon the porch outside, then Dorothy came into the hall. She paused outside the library door for a moment, ostensibly to tie her shoe, but in reality to listen. A wave of remorseful tenderness overwhelmed Harlan and he unlocked the door. "Come in," he said, smiling. "You needn't be afraid to come in any more. ...
— At the Sign of the Jack O'Lantern • Myrtle Reed

... Allard. Soon after his arrival intelligence reached Saumur of the death of the Madlle de Dauple whom Claude had married in Normandy—an occurrence which seemed to give him the utmost sorrow, but which did not prevent him from marrying Anne Allard within a very short time, his own feelings being ostensibly sacrificed to those of his mother, who was anxious that he should settle down at home. In this instance, also, a marriage-contract was entered into, and was signed by Madame de Verre and her son Jacques. Not content with this proof of affection, the mother ...
— Celebrated Claimants from Perkin Warbeck to Arthur Orton • Anonymous

... and his son, the Emperor had resumed his accustomed serenity; and I rarely surprised him in that open abandonment to dejection to which he sometimes gave way, in the retirement of his chamber, immediately after our return from Moscow. He was occupied more ostensibly than usual in the numerous public works which were being prosecuted in Paris, and which formed a useful distraction to his engrossing thoughts of war and the distressing news which reached him from the army. Almost every day, troops, equipped as if by magic, were reviewed by his Majesty, and ordered ...
— The Memoirs of Napoleon Bonaparte • Bourrienne, Constant, and Stewarton

... blackmail people. His method was the very simple one of publishing some unfounded scandal without using any names, and then to print a paragraph immediately following in which the real names of the parties appeared, ostensibly with relation to ...
— The Confessions of Artemas Quibble • Arthur Train

... must do my duty, nevertheless. This spy, I am sure, is yet in the city; but while she cannot get out herself, she may have ways of forwarding to the enemy what she steals from us. There is where the real danger lies, and I am of the opinion that the spy is aided by some one in Richmond, ostensibly a friend of the Southern cause. What do you think of ...
— Before the Dawn - A Story of the Fall of Richmond • Joseph Alexander Altsheler

... window—a favourite haunt of his from which he was able to see without too ostensibly being seen—noted their coming up the broad driveway, with something of disfavour in his look. Merriton had given him certain directions only the night before, and Borkins was a keen-sighted man. Also, the little fat johnny at any rate, didn't quite look the type of man that the Merriton's were ...
— The Riddle of the Frozen Flame • Mary E. Hanshew

... father look tickled to death!" Patience declared, coming in to her sisters' room that night, ostensibly to have an obstinate knot untied, but inwardly determined to make a third at the usual bedtime talk for that once, at least. It wasn't often they all came ...
— The S. W. F. Club • Caroline E. Jacobs

... of Puritan sentiment in the clergy as a whole. A far wider change had been brought about in the expulsion of Royalist clergy from their benefices during the Civil War; but the change had been gradual, and had been at least ostensibly wrought for the most part on political or moral rather than on religious grounds. The parsons expelled were expelled as "malignants," or as unfitted for their office by idleness or vice or inability to preach. But the change wrought by St. Bartholomew's ...
— History of the English People, Volume VI (of 8) - Puritan England, 1642-1660; The Revolution, 1660-1683 • John Richard Green

... nor is bondage to be found in affluence. One attains to Emancipation through Knowledge alone, whether one is indigent or affluent. For these reasons, know that I am living in a condition of freedom, though ostensibly engaged in the enjoyments of religion, wealth, and pleasure, in the form of kingdom and spouses, which constitute a field of bondage (for the generality of men). The bonds constituted by kingdom and affluence, and the bondage to attachments, I have cut off with the sword of Renunciation ...
— The Mahabharata of Krishna-Dwaipayana Vyasa, Volume 3 - Books 8, 9, 10, 11 and 12 • Unknown

... war of the Spanish succession, however, it was taken by a combined English and Dutch fleet under Sir George Rooke, assisted by a body of troops under Prince George of Hesse-Darmstadt. The captors had ostensibly fought in the interests of Charles Archduke of Austria (afterward Charles III.), but, though his sovereignty over the rock was proclaimed on July 24, 1704, Sir George Rooke on his own responsibility caused the English ...
— Scientific American Supplement, No. 711, August 17, 1889 • Various

... crackled and blazed on the hearth within doors. Marie would gladly have shortened the inevitable slowness of this state of siege: she did not at all like to see her betrothed dawdling about in the wet and cold; but she had no voice in the affair—nay, she had even to share ostensibly in the cruelty of ...
— Chambers's Edinburgh Journal, No. 444 - Volume 18, New Series, July 3, 1852 • Various

... Paris, purporting to be an agreement made by Chabot in his official capacity, with Jean Ango, of Dieppe, and other persons, including Jehan de Varesam, for a voyage to the Indies with two vessels belonging to the king, and one to Ango, to be conducted by Varesam, as master pilot, for the purpose ostensibly of bringing bask a cargo of spices. [Footnote: M. Margry. Navigations Francaises, p. 194. See Appendix.] This instrument has no date, but on its face belongs to Chabot's administration of the admiralty, and must, therefore, have been drawn up in the year 1526 or ...
— The Voyage of Verrazzano • Henry C. Murphy

... [Greek: Eis zonen].] Nominally to furnish her with girdles, or to supply ornaments for her girdle, it being the custom with the Persian kings to bestow places on their queens and other favourites ostensibly for the purpose of furnishing them with articles of dress, food, or other conveniences. See Herod, ii. 98; Plato, Alcib. I. c. 40; Cic. in Verr. iii. 23; Corn. Nepos, Life ...
— The First Four Books of Xenophon's Anabasis • Xenophon

... unfortunately be present. My visit would ostensibly be paid to her. Already I began to dislike her and fancy that her conduct towards the young girl entrusted to her care must have been ...
— The House by the Lock • C. N. Williamson

... tried had failed either wholly or partially. Besides, Eva had been obliged to keep in the background in order not to expose herself to the suspicion of pleading her own cause. Many probably thought that Frau Christine herself was talking ostensibly in behalf of the servant and really for ...
— Uarda • Georg Ebers

... Guardian, who comforted his mother, when the worthy lady was so unlucky as to scald her hand with the boiling tea-kettle, by assuring her there was no such thing as heat, but which at least served to show that this branch of liberal education fully occupied the mind of the individuals ostensibly engaged in mastering it; and we remember a subsequent time, when students—some of them very clever ones—seemed never to have thought on these questions at all, and remained silent in conversation when they chanced to be mooted by the men of an earlier generation. During, however, ...
— Leading Articles on Various Subjects • Hugh Miller

... an excursion with my eldest son, to explore the limits of our country, and satisfy ourselves that it was an island, and not a part of the continent. We set out, ostensibly, to bring the sledge we had left the previous evening. I took Turk and the ass with us, and left Flora with my wife and children, and, with a bag of provisions, we left Falcon's Nest as ...
— The Swiss Family Robinson; or Adventures in a Desert Island • Johann David Wyss

... called upon, one fine morning, to accompany her in a walk to the village. Ostensibly she went to get some shades of Berlin wool, at a tolerably respectable shop that was chiefly supported by the ladies of the vicinity: really—I trust there is no breach of charity in supposing that she went with the ...
— Agnes Grey • Anne Bronte

... the joy of their full youth, a splendid couple, some distance away from the others, ostensibly inspecting a luminous little Cima on the wall. The Princess loved it as the bright jewel of her collection, and Paul, with his sense of beauty and knowledge of art, loved it too. Yet, instead of talking of the picture, they talked of Lavretsky, who was looking at ...
— The Fortunate Youth • William J. Locke

... Susan B. Anthony, though ostensibly involving the political status of woman alone, in reality questions the right of every man to share in the Government; that it is not Susan B. Anthony, or the women of the Republic who alone are on trial to-day, but it is the Government ...
— History of Woman Suffrage, Volume II • Elizabeth Cady Stanton, Susan B. Anthony, and Matilda Joslyn Gage

... the coast, trading with the natives; but it was so improbable that they should have been sent away while the rajah was in fear of an attack by his neighbors that no credence was given to the assertion. The ship's boats often went out for long rows on the river, ostensibly—as the captain told the rajah, who inquired suspiciously as to the meaning of these excursions—for the sake of giving the crews active exercise, but principally in order to take soundings of the ...
— Among Malay Pirates - And Other Tales Of Adventure And Peril • G. A. Henty



Words linked to "Ostensibly" :   apparently, ostensible



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