Seemly vs Ostensible - What's the difference?
seemly | ostensible |
(of behavior) Appropriate; suited to the occasion or purpose; becoming.
* Shakespeare
* Hooker
Appropriately, fittingly.
* 1590 , Edmund Spenser, The Faerie Queene , II.i:
Apparent, evident; meant for open display.
* 1956–1960 , (second edition, 1960), chapter ii: “Motives and Motivation”, page 32:
* '>citation
Appearing as such; being such in appearance; professed, supposed (rather than demonstrably true or real).
As adjectives the difference between seemly and ostensible
is that seemly is (of behavior) appropriate; suited to the occasion or purpose; becoming while ostensible is apparent, evident; meant for open display.As an adverb seemly
is appropriately, fittingly.seemly
English
Adjective
(er)- His behavior was seemly , as befits a gentleman.
- I am a woman, lacking wit / To make a seemly answer to such persons.
- Suspense of judgment and exercise of charity were safer and seemlier for Christian men than the hot pursuit of these controversies.
Synonyms
* appositeAntonyms
* unseemlyDerived terms
* * * seemlinessAdverb
(en adverb)- The great earthes wombe they open to the sky, / And with sad Cypresse seemely it embraue [...].
ostensible
English
Adjective
(en adjective)- Motives, of course, may be mixed; but this only means that a man aims at a variety of goals by means of the same course of action. Similarly a man may have a strong motive or a weak one, an ulterior motive or an ostensible one.
- In witch-trials the conflict was officially defined as between the accused and God, or between the accused and the Catholic (later Protestant) church, as God's earthly representative. [...]
Behind the ostensible conflict of the witch-trial lay the usual conflicts of social class, values, and human relationships.
- The ostensible reason for his visit to New York was to see his mother, but the real reason was to get to the Yankees game the next day.