Obvious

How to spell obvious

7 letters · 3 syllables

How to pronounce obvious

Say the part in capitals loudest.

What does obvious mean?

1. adjectiveEasily seen, recognised, or understood; plainly evident.

Obvious in a sentence

• The cause of the leak was obvious once she lifted the floorboard.

• There was no obvious reason for the sudden drop in sales.

Where does obvious come from?

Language of origin: Latin

This word comes from the Latin obvius, meaning 'meeting in the way' or 'lying in the path', which was built from the prefix ob-, meaning 'against' or 'in the way of', and via, the Latin word for a 'road' or 'way'. The literal image was of something positioned directly in your path, so close that you could hardly miss it. From that physical idea the sense shifted naturally to anything that is plainly evident or impossible to overlook, and English adopted it in the late sixteenth century. The same via root survives in everyday words such as 'via', 'viaduct', and 'deviate', the last of which literally means to step off the road. The trap in spelling obvious is the unstressed middle: writers can forget the 'i' before 'ous', and the single 'b' is sometimes doubled by mistake.

How the word is built

• ob- (in the way of, against)
• via (way, road)
• -ous (full of, characterised by)