ostentation

UK/ˌɒstənˈteɪʃən/US/ˌɒstənˈteɪʃən/

nounC1Very rare — outside the 30,000 commonest English words, so you will meet it in writing rather than in speechneutral

Ostentation is a showy display meant to impress. Vulgar ostentation.

It is always disapproving, since nobody describes their own spending that way. Ostentation is judged by the gap between the display and the means behind it.

Definitions of ostentation

1nounostentationA showy display meant to impress.C1
“The ostentation of the whole affair embarrassed even the guests.”

ostentation is a display.

Where it comes from

Latin ostentatio, from ostendere, to show, which is obs plus tendere, to stretch out.

Latin
ostentātiō
Middle French
ostentation
Middle English
ostentacioun
English, today
ostentation

Built from

ostendere · Latin — to present, display

Originated 1425–75 from late Middle English ostentacioun, borrowed from Middle French ostentation and its etymon Latin ostentātiō, equivalent to ostentātus (past participle of ostentāre, to display or exhibit), frequentative of ostendere (“to present, display”) + -iōn. by surface analysis, ostent + -ation.

Etymology from Wiktionary, CC BY-SA

Practise this word

ostentation in the wild

Cautiousness and ardent passion, dry pedantry and piety, morality and sensuality; simplicity and ostentation composed his nature and, hence, his literary productions never attained artistic finish.
Theodor Gottlieb von Hippel the Elder
Gamp always carries one, which she displays with "particular ostentation".
Sarah Gamp
Cornwallis was described in his obituary as 'hospitable, obliging and beneficent; a lover of virtue without ostentation, and of mirth without vice'.
Francis Cornwallis
The Book of Gifts and Rarities is an Arabic history of wealth and ostentation from the 6th to 11th centuries.
Book of Gifts and Rarities

From Wikipedia, CC BY-SA 4.0. These sentences were written by other people about their own subjects; they are here to show the word at work, not as anybody’s opinion.

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