Ostentatious: meaning, example and synonyms
Ostentatiousadj. Designed to impress or attract notice through showy display.
Example
The merchant's ostentatious mansion, with its gilded columns and marble fountains, seemed intended less for living than for announcing his newfound wealth.
- Part of speech
- adjective
- Synonyms
- showy, flamboyant, pretentious, flashy
- Antonyms
- modest, understated, plain, restrained
- Memory tip
- Ostentatious = 'show-tentatious': everything is for show.
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Check yourself: Ostentatious in context
Guests at the gala were struck by the host's ______ display: chandeliers in every hallway, a fountain flowing with sparkling cider, and footmen in gilded livery.
Answer: ostentatious. Chandeliers everywhere and gilded livery are showy displays meant to impress: ostentatious. Conjectural (speculative), vicarious (secondhand) and pliant (flexible) don't describe lavish show.
Unlike her predecessors, whose palaces dripped with gold leaf, the new governor chose a modest farmhouse, regarding ______ displays of wealth as an insult to the struggling province.
Answer: ostentatious. Gold-leaf palaces contrasted with a modest farmhouse point to showy wealth: ostentatious. Serene (calm), conjectural (speculative) and stringent (strict) don't describe flaunting wealth.