Conspicuous means impossible to miss. A red coat in a grey crowd, a builder's van parked outside a row of quiet houses, the one empty chair at a full table.
It works from both sides. A thing can be conspicuous - the scar was conspicuous even from across the room - and a person can feel conspicuous, which is the uncomfortable feeling of being looked at when you would rather not be. Two fixed phrases carry it: conspicuous by his absence, meaning the missing person was the thing everyone noticed, and conspicuous consumption, spending done so that other people can see it. It stretches to mean strikingly great, as in conspicuous bravery on a medal. Do not read it as impressive; conspicuous only means noticeable, and the noticing can be the last thing you wanted. Its opposite, inconspicuous, is the word for a coat you can disappear in.
1adjectiveconspicuousEasy to see or notice; standing out from everything around it.~65%
“His bright yellow van was conspicuous in the grey car park.”
2adjectiveattractingAttracting attention in a way that makes you uncomfortable.~18%
“I felt conspicuous walking into the lecture twenty minutes late.”
3adjectiveoutstandingStrikingly great; remarkable.~17%
“She showed conspicuous courage during the rescue.”
synonyms: outstanding
Shares are an estimate: a language model read 17 sentences found in the wild and placed 17 of them on a sense — a count of our sample, not a measurement of English.
Also accepted in games: noticeable
Conspicuous comes from Latin conspicuus, 'visible, striking', from conspicere, 'to notice'. That verb breaks into con-, 'with, together', and specere, 'to look at' - the same Latin looking that sits inside spectacles and inspect. The whole family traces back to the Proto-Indo-European root *spek-, and a conspicuous thing is one the eye lands on without being asked.
Proto-Indo-European
*speḱ-
Latin
conspicuus — visible, striking
English, today
conspicuous
Built from
From Latin conspicuus (“visible, striking”), from cōnspicere (“to notice”), from con- (“with, together”) + specere (“to look at”).
Etymology from Wiktionary, CC BY-SA