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ostensible adjective
/ɒsˈtent .sɪ.bl ̩/
/ɑːˈstent -/ adj [before noun] formal Definition
appearing or claiming to be one thing when it is really something else
Their ostensible goal was to clean up government corruption, but their real aim was to unseat the government.
ostensibly adverb
/ɒsˈtent .sɪ.bli//ɑːˈstent -/ adv He has spent the past three months in Florida, ostensibly for medical treatment, but in actual fact to avoid prosecution for a series of notorious armed robberies.
(Definition of ostensible adjective from the Cambridge Advanced Learner's Dictionary & Thesaurus © Cambridge University Press)
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