ostensive.

1. Defining or explaining something by showing examples rather than relying only on verbal description.

2. Appearing or being presented as true, though not necessarily representing the actual situation.

Use it for

Words that belong together

• ostensive definition
• ostensive demonstration
• ostensive teaching

On the page

Pointing to several tools, the instructor offered an ostensive definition of a lever.

Usage notes

Primary category: academic / formal / analytical. Lexical Type: Word. Forms: Normally non-gradable; no ordinary comparative or superlative. Commonness: uncommon (editorial estimate; not a corpus frequency statistic). Legacy lexical fields mirror sense 1; numbered fields keep each relevant meaning separate. Research distinction: MW explicitly records both definition by exemplification and apparent/ostensible uses; keep them separate. Writing functions: analysis, conceptual distinction.