Something obvious is so plain that nobody has to explain it. The keys on the table the whole time you were hunting for them, the spelling mistake in the headline, the reason the printer will not print — it is unplugged.
Obviously is the form you hear most, and half the time it is doing no work at all — just a word people put at the front of a sentence while they decide what the sentence is. The obvious can stand as a noun: stating the obvious is a mild insult, and so is telling someone that the answer is obvious, because you have told them they were slow to see it. There is a shade of too easy in the word as well; an obvious joke is one you saw coming from the other side of the room. It pairs with to — it was obvious to everyone except him.
1adjectiveobviousEasy to see or understand, and needing no explanation.~96%
“The obvious answer is to ask her yourself.”
synonyms: clear, plain, evident
2adjectiveunmistakableOf a feeling: showing plainly on the surface.~2%
“Her obvious delight made the whole room laugh.”
synonyms: unmistakable
3adjectivethereforeToo easy, and therefore a little dull.~2%
“The ending was obvious from the first ten minutes.”
Shares are an estimate: a language model read 15 sentences found in the wild and placed 15 of them on a sense — a count of our sample, not a measurement of English.
Also accepted in games: clear, evident
Latin ob-, before, and via, way: obvius meant standing in the road so as to meet you. An obvious thing is not merely visible, then — it is in your path, and you have to walk round it. The via in it is the same via you use in English for going by way of somewhere.
Built from
16th century, from obvius + -ous, from ob- (“before”) + via (“way”).
Etymology from Wiktionary, CC BY-SA