Meaning of ostent | Babel Free

Definitions

1. A display, an exhibition; an appearance, a manifestation.
   archaic, rare
2. A portent, a token.
   archaic, rare
3. One sixtieth of an hour: a minute (60 seconds).
   historical, obsolete
4. A boastful, ostentatious display or exhibition.

Examples

“Vſe all the obſeruance of ciuility, / Like one well ſtudied in a ſad oſtent / To pleaſe his Grandam, neuer truſt me more.”

“Be merry, and employ your cheefeſt thoughts / To Courtſhip, and ſuch faire oſtents of loue, / As ſhall conueniently become you there.”

“In every object, mountain, tree and star—In every birth and life, / As part of each—evolv'd from each—meaning, behind the ostent, / A mystic cipher waits infolded.”

“We ask'd of God that some ostent might clear / Our cloudy business, who gave us sign.”

“Latinus, frighted with this dire ostent, / For counsel to his father Faunus went,”

“[…] one would be inclined to suspect some confusion in Bede's information, seeing that 40 moments and 60 ostents both are equal to an hour. I cannot find an example of the use of ostentum as a measure of time before Bede, and it is first used as one-sixtieth of an hour in 978 A.D. by Alcuin, who knows a double use.”

“As listed in the Oxford English Dictionary under atom, the hour in the table of Papias contained either 5 points, 10 minutes, 15 parts, 40 moments, 60 ostents, [or] 480 ounces[…]”

CEFR level