Search the Dictionary

ly discovered, seen, or understood; readily perceived by the eye or the intellect; plain; evident; apparent; as, an obvious meaning; an obvious remark. Apart and easy to be known they lie, Amidst the heap, and obvious to the eye. Pope.

Without reserve or disguise; plainly; evidently. My love . . . shall show itself more openly. Shak.

A secondary spiral in phyllotaxy, as one of the evident spirals in a pine cone.

The state of being patent or evident.

Open; expanded; evident; apparent; unconcealed; manifest; public; conspicuous. He had received instructions, both patent and secret. Motley.

Openly; evidently.

s throughout the year; perforce, through or by force; perfoliate, perforate; perspicuous, evident throughout or very evident; perplex, literally, to entangle very much.

Open; evident; apert. [Obs.] Piers Plowman.

Evident; visible. Phanerite series (Geol.), the uppermost part of the earth's crust, consisting of deposits produced by causes in obvious operation.

Not intricate or difficult; evident; manifest; obvious; clear; unmistakable. "'T is a plain case." Shak.

A theorem or proposition so easy of demonstration as to be almost self-evident. [R.] Crabb.

ally, a position or supposition assumed without proof, or one which is considered as self-evident; a truth to which assent may be demanded or challenged, without argument or evidence.

Unresistingly; openly; hence, clearly; evidently. [Obs.] Shak.

sease of the mind; especially, a functional mental disorder, that is, one unattended with evident organic changes.

Liable to be doubted; doubtful; nice. [Obs.] The justice of that cause ought to be evident; not obscrure, not scrupulous. Bacon.

The quality or state of being self-evident. Locke.

by which internal characteristics were supposed to be indicated. Some plants bear a very evident signature of their nature and use. Dr. H. More.

school doctors. Latimer. To smell a rat, to have a sense of something wrong, not clearly evident; to have reason for suspicion. [Colloq.] -- To smell out, to find out by sagacity. [Colloq.]

m out of his wits. Shak. To stare in the face, to be before the eyes, or to be undeniably evident. "The law . . . stares them in the face whilst they are breaking it." Locke.

ble of being possessed or realized; readily apprehensible by the mind; real; substantial; evident. "A tangible blunder." Byron. Direct and tangible benefit to ourselves and others. Southey. -- Tan"gi*ble*ness, n. -- Tan"gi*bly, adv.