All 3 Uses of
ostentatious
in
Ulysses, by James Joyce
- Mr Bloom, without evincing surprise, unostentatiously turned over the card to peruse the partially obliterated address and postmark.†
Chpt 16unostentatiously = not in a manner intended to attract notice and impress othersstandard prefix: The prefix "un-" in unostentatiously means not and reverses the meaning of ostentatiously. This is the same pattern you see in words like unhappy, unknown, and unlucky.
- For instance there was the case of O'Callaghan, for one, the half-crazy faddist, respectably connected though of inadequate means, with his mad vagaries among whose other gay doings when rotto and making himself a nuisance to everybody all round he was in the habit of ostentatiously sporting in public a suit of brown paper (a fact).†
Chpt 16ostentatiously = in a manner intended to attract notice and impress others
- in evening dress cut ostentatiously low for the occasion
Chpt 16 *
Definition:
intended to attract notice and impress others -- especially with wealth in a vulgar way