How much do you ostentate?

To show off is to ostentate, which is a more show-offy word, and so apt to the thing described. The Latin ostentare means ‘to show off’, or ‘display too frequently’, and thence too we have the more common noun ostentation. Martin Fotherby, theologian and Bishop of Salisbury, who died on this day in 1620, uses the verb in scholarly self-defence in his posthumously published Atheomastix: Clearing Four Truths, Against Atheists and Infidels.

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