Emily Dickinson Lexicon

OS-TEN'SI-BLE, a. [It. ostensibile, from L. ostendo, to show.]

1. That may be shown; proper or intended to be shown. Warton.
2. Plausible; colorable. Pownall.
3. Appearing; seeming; shown, declared or avowed. We say, the ostensible reason or motive for a measure may be the real one, or very different from the real one. This is the common, and I believe the only sense in which the word is used in America. One of the ostensible grounds on which the proprietors had obtained their charter. Ramsay.