ostensible

Example Sentences

Examples are provided to illustrate real-world usage of words in context. Any opinions expressed do not reflect the views of Dictionary.com.

But notes of disillusion sound throughout this ostensible success story.

From The Wall Street Journal • Nov. 14, 2025

Here, Sweeney takes a big leap from her admirable work in small-screen dramas and rom-coms to an ostensible Oscar vehicle, diving into the deep end with the same fearless certainty Martin boasted in the ’90s.

From Salon • Nov. 8, 2025

But the movie is more effective as a grim, involving cop thriller than it is as an ostensible statement on the Order’s reverberations in the present.

From New York Times • Dec. 6, 2024

The resulting document, released late last year, is something of a paradox—a list of ostensible directives that are couched in voluntary language, with nobody empowered to enforce them.

From Slate • Dec. 5, 2024

In the following chapters we will see time and again how a dramatic increase in the collective power and ostensible success of our species went hand in hand with much individual suffering.

From "Sapiens: A Brief History of Humankind" by Yuval Noah Harari