ostensible
\ɔs.tɑ̃.sibl\
The verdict
“ostensible” is uncommon French (frequency #81,413 among 1,642 “O” headwords), classed as an adjective. The kind of spelling people second-guess.
- #81,413
- frequency rank, French
- 1,642
- “O” headwords
According to Wiktionary data (CC BY-SA, analyzed September 3, 2026) - Qui est fait pour être montré.
Corpus desk
Index FR-ostensible · ostensible · French
ostensible · rank #81,413 · 0 variants · 0 confusables
- FREQ-RARE #81,413
- LEN-MEGA 10 letters
- VOW-4 4 vowels
- CONFUS-0 No pairs
- VAR-0 0 variants
- BOOK-MID 1,642
- PHOTO-FINISH osselets
Nearest frequency peer: osselets (-1 rank slots)
Desk codes from Wiktionary headword shape, FrequencyWords rank tier, confusable-pair count, generated misspelling depth, letter-cohort book size, and photo-finish peer. Not a difficulty grade.
Rangs de longue queue près de « ostensible »
Bande clairsemée: les barres inversent le rang pour que le rare se lise plus court
- Orbit
Orbit
18,592 corpus weight
- ordinations
ordinations
18,591 corpus weight
- osselets
osselets
18,589 corpus weight
- ostensible
ostensible
18,588 corpus weight
- ostéopathes
ostéopathes
18,587 corpus weight
- overall
overall
18,586 corpus weight
What this shows Vue de longue queue: où « ostensible » se situe face à des rangs français aussi rares.
| Property | Value |
|---|---|
| Headword | ostensible |
| Language | French |
| Part of speech | Adjective |
| IPA | \ɔs.tɑ̃.sibl\ |
| Letters | 10 |
| Frequency rank | #81,413 |
| Misspellings tracked | 0 |
| Confusable pairs | 0 |
| Source | Wiktionary (kaikki.org) |
Longue queue: rang de « ostensible » en français
Rare enough to double-check
ostensible is uncommon French at frequency #81,413 among 1,642 “O” headwords, classed as anadjective, transcribed \ɔs.tɑ̃.sibl\. Rarity is why readers land here mid-draft. 2 senses are on record.
No generated misspelling entries exist for ostensible in our index, since its letter pattern doesn't lend itself to common typo substitutions. Our dataset records no confusable match here, since nothing in our dataset looks or sounds close enough to cause mix-ups.
No documented word history exists for this headword, so spelling patterns must be inferred from the word's phoneme-to-grapheme mapping rather than from a documented borrowing chain. The correct French form is ostensible, spelled O-S-T-E-N-S-I-B-L-E.
Definition
- 1Qui est fait pour être montré.
- 2Dont l'existence ou la réalité ne peut passer inaperçue.
Recorded use
Wiktionary examplesThese source excerpts show how ostensible appears in context. They illustrate usage; the definition above remains the entry’s reference meaning.
Je mettrai mes fonds à la Banque de France et je reviendrai vous trouver en ne me donnant qu’une fortune ostensible d’environ un million en marchandises.
L'image d'un rituel funéraire congolais en milieu urbain semble dominée par l'expression d'un rapport de force entre acteurs. Les nantis cherchent à impressionner dans l'espace du deuil en montrant de façon ostensible, leur richesse.
Synonyms
Antonyms
This word in other languages
Definitions, pronunciation, and etymology for this entry are drawn from Wiktionary via the kaikki.org structured extract (CC BY-SA); frequency ordering uses the FrequencyWords open word-frequency list (2018 French corpus, MIT). See the methodology for how each field is sourced and updated.
Frequently Asked Questions
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Similar French words by spelling shape
Same letter count and similar misspelling depth for "ostensible", not the corpus desk frequency band.
Same letter count
Frequency-ranked French headwords with 10 letters (nearest by frequency rank).