adjective
COLLOCATIONS FROM OTHER ENTRIES
a clear/obvious connection
▪ There is an obvious connection between this painting and his earlier works.
a clear/obvious contrast
▪ There was a clear contrast between the father and the son.
a clear/obvious correlation
▪ There is a clear correlation between carbon dioxide emissions and global warming.
a clear/obvious/unmistakable sign
▪ There are clear signs of a slowdown in economic growth.
an obvious conclusion
▪ All her symptoms led to the obvious conclusion – she was pregnant.
an obvious example
▪ Our climate is changing at an alarming rate. The melting of the polar ice caps is an obvious example of this.
an obvious exception
▪ The earliest historical records, with the obvious exception of Chinese, are written in Indo-European languages.
an obvious explanation (=one that is easy to see or notice)
▪ There is no obvious explanation for his strange behaviour.
an obvious successor
▪ He doesn't have an obvious successor as leader.
blindingly obvious
▪ It was blindingly obvious that Max wasn’t interested.
for obvious reasons
▪ This arrangement must be kept secret, for obvious reasons.
glaringly obvious
▪ Some of the clues were glaringly obvious.
obvious embarrassment (=clear for other people to see)
▪ He shuffled his feet around in obvious embarrassment.
obvious reluctance
▪ ‘OK,’ he said, with obvious reluctance.
obvious/evident (=easy to see)
▪ Spencer was staring at the girl with obvious delight.
painfully obvious/clear/evident/apparent
▪ It was painfully obvious he’d rather not see her again.
patently obvious
▪ It’s patently obvious that you’re in love with her.
stating the obvious
▪ Fine, but aren’t you just stating the obvious here?
the obvious answer
▪ The obvious answer is to raise taxes, but that would be unpopular.
COLLOCATIONS FROM CORPUS
■ ADVERB
fairly
▪ I think it's fairly obvious why.
▪ It should be fairly obvious that the choice of air appropriate discount rate is a key decision in the capital budgeting process.
▪ Many of its effects are fairly obvious and generally acknowledged.
▪ It should be fairly obvious that the effect of an expense is to decrease owners' equity.
▪ The need for a high degree of safety should be fairly obvious.
▪ To Carol Wilson, however, it became fairly obvious that Copeland wanted to sign Sting's publishing to his own company.
▪ The advantages of using systematic numbering should be fairly obvious.
immediately
▪ The implications of this remark were not immediately obvious.
▪ Other political figures are immediately obvious: an embittered Jesse Jackson stand-in.
▪ Over half a million people have watched the first two Tests and two things are immediately obvious.
▪ This detail would have been immediately obvious had the slipper been made of glass.
▪ The distinction between primary and secondary sources will not always be immediately obvious to the pupil.
▪ As is immediately obvious, a psychotherapy based on this approach is quite different from one based on the older questions.
▪ Any difference in taste is immediately obvious.
less
▪ Some are closely related to a specific professional qualification, while in others a vocational orientation is much less obvious.
▪ What may be less obvious is how time consuming, expensive, and risky it is to alter such arrangements.
▪ Architecture is less obvious, but it still happens.
▪ The iron rule of the market has been much less obvious than was the rule of the military during the cold war.
▪ From the particle point of view the result is less obvious.
▪ In other places, natural controls on the distribution of animals are less obvious.
▪ Slightly less obvious but essential to the winding up of the nerve endings is Michael Carr's neglect of his wife.
▪ Occasionally the targets are less obvious than Percy.
more
▪ Bolder colours need to be blended smoothly, as faults in application will always be more obvious.
▪ To most of us, however, nothing is more obvious than that the universe really is quite something.
▪ Drosera rotundifolia is uncommon and Sphagna are mush less abundant, while Cladonia species and Racomitrium are much more obvious.
▪ The rest, I fear, is still more obvious.
▪ Compare this with the rather more obvious open-hand attack to the face.
▪ Deeper, more obvious onion flavor in every bite than others tried.
▪ The national summarizes complex social and economic issues where the sources of fury are more obvious.
▪ Water restriction would lead to more obvious hypertonicity.
most
▪ The most obvious one would be the will, but murder by advantaged legatees is a risky business.
▪ Raskin was so protective of these qualities that he fought even the most obvious concessions to granting the machine more power.
▪ If the brain is a machine, why do the most obvious associations sometimes escape us?
▪ The most obvious editor was also probably your first teacher.
▪ It's the most obvious thing to do.
▪ The most obvious case surrounds the Convention Center arena.
▪ Among the most obvious categories here are the unskilled, the young, black people and those made redundant from manufacturing.
▪ The most obvious of these was the tax deductibility of mortgage interest payments.
painfully
▪ She had resented Eline from the first moment and made her hate of Joe Harries painfully obvious.
▪ Should the government reduce the actual frequency of tragedies, or should it simply make them less painfully obvious?
▪ Statistics aren't necessary to document what is painfully obvious.
▪ It was soon painfully obvious who the winner was in this contest.
▪ It was becoming painfully obvious that apart from a brief, overpowering lust there was no reciprocation of her fragile feelings.
▪ Perhaps the most important of those things seems painfully obvious, at least to wine country insiders.
▪ It has become even more painfully obvious now.
▪ For all her cheerfulness it was painfully obvious that she was feeling awful.
pretty
▪ It's pretty obvious that Kurt Cobain has been running on reserve tanks for most of this Euro-jaunt.
▪ They were pretty obvious in the old days.
▪ That's pretty obvious....
▪ But it's pretty obvious where that ridiculous attraction came from.
▪ It was pretty obvious he made the right decision.
▪ It seems pretty obvious they both attend the same origami evening class.
▪ Which was pretty obvious, really.
quite
▪ Well, Malcolm, I said I can't do this any more, it's quite obvious.
▪ Here it is quite obvious that Yeltsin will not compromise.
▪ What puzzles a philosopher and taxes his mind to distraction may look completely irrelevant or quite obvious to a businessman.
▪ A few of the conflicts of interest in the obesity research field seem quite obvious.
▪ It became quite obvious who really needed spanking.
▪ When I processed my attitudes towards money, the reasons became quite obvious.
▪ It was quite obvious where Miss Rose's interests still lay.
▪ It was quite obvious what was going on.
so
▪ It was all so obvious he didn't know why he hadn't worked it out before.
▪ It all seemed so obvious: there was a correct position for every-thing, at all points in the swing.
▪ The effect Jennifer had on him was so obvious that Ann was amazed he made no attempt to disguise it.
▪ The human price is not so obvious at first.
▪ It was so obvious that Alex saw her as second best.
▪ These principles are so obvious that many organizations overlook them.
▪ But this made it so obvious who had sent this copy that he was astonished that it had been sent at all.
▪ But he had let it become so obvious that the civic leaders were complaining.
too
▪ Nigel couldn't really review the stories himself - that would look too obvious.
▪ But the movie tells the wrong story, getting detoured into a murder investigation whose solution is far too obvious.
▪ They did not want it to be too obvious, since observing the search would provide them with great amusement.
▪ Evidently, however, the landing zone was too obvious, and the enemy was prepared.
▪ Some may complain that such tricks are too obvious.
▪ The rest of us waited to see what would happen, tryIng not to make our interest too obvious.
▪ It's too obvious to need saying, but I wonder whether we think of it enough.
▪ Something to make me laugh without being too obvious.
very
▪ Here we have a K-type supergiant, whose colour is very obvious in binoculars.
▪ Because of the very obvious advantages of growing in containers the practice, in far too many hands, has become a circus.
▪ This becomes very obvious once you put the process into practice.
▪ His interest in education was very obvious and his attendance at Keele was evidence of this.
▪ With some speakers the difference is not very obvious.
▪ She was alarmed to hear a very obvious lack of conviction in her voice, though.
▪ Maxim's assumption came as a relief- and a very obvious fact.
▪ In the spring, this need of young animals for the company of those of the same age is very obvious.
■ NOUN
advantage
▪ Where it's good it's very good indeed and all-wheel drive at this price as an obvious advantage.
▪ Despite the obvious advantages of a unified perspective for collective political action, the differences among women disallow such a perspective.
▪ This has obvious advantages for local users.
▪ There are obvious advantages to the camera approach.
▪ Their true jaws are of obvious advantage for grasping prey.
▪ These large companies have obvious advantages in the service provider business because of their well-known brand names.
▪ For these boats a sail which allows them to compete more evenly under handicap rules has obvious advantages.
▪ The most obvious advantage of this system was that it made obsolete the fifty-five spheres of Aristotle.
answer
▪ The obvious answer is to draw it back to the side away from the corner, but this can create an unbalanced appearance.
▪ Video teleconferencing seemed the obvious answer to span the communications gap.
▪ Cui bono? has a too obvious answer.
▪ If counterintelligence becomes the overriding mission, the obvious answer is the solution first offered by Sen.
▪ To all these and other equally weighty questions, I had no obvious answers yet.
▪ The obvious answer, of course, is that it is just another example of the Government's incompetence.
▪ For the Terrells a good many of the obvious answers are irrelevant.
candidate
▪ An obvious candidate is a visual recognition system.
▪ The obvious candidate as vehicle would have been gesture.
▪ Charity was an obvious candidate, Charles considered, and she was probably being watched.
▪ And a fund wishing to commit money to the international media industry has in Reed/Elsevier an obvious candidate for such an investment.
▪ Genes must surely be made of something that is itself various-and the most obvious candidate was protein.
▪ Heavily leaded bronzes are obvious candidates for analysis.
▪ An obvious candidate is some stylised representation of a finite-state machine.
▪ Smaller and less costly items such as pens, beauty products and food are much more obvious candidates for a more general distribution.
choice
▪ Most flooring can be laid anywhere in the house but there are some obvious choices for certain rooms.
▪ No problem, Mr Hinds had said, the obvious choice was Renie LaChance.
▪ Given the nature of the project, Pontus Hulten was an obvious choice to direct the artistic activities of the new Kunsthalle.
▪ That they have everybody back, another year bigger, stronger and smarter, makes them the obvious choice.
▪ Most frequently the group had several alternative plants to consider for closure rather than an obvious choice.
▪ Says Ted: My father was the obvious choice.
▪ Joseph Fiennes has never been one for obvious choices.
▪ Best apres ski: The obvious choice is Rainbow Lodge.
example
▪ An obvious example is the relationship of a part to a whole.
▪ An obvious example was reported recently in Tennessee.
▪ Advertising material is an obvious example.
▪ A single obvious example should suffice to make the point.
▪ A direct and obvious example is that many marine animals are dispersed around the globe by ocean currents.
▪ Constitutional monarchies are obvious examples of political systems with a dual executive.
▪ An obvious example would be a painting called Bald Eagle, made in 1955, one year before the car accident.
▪ One obvious example is the almost universal ban against committing adultery with another man s wife.
fact
▪ The most obvious fact is that real problems are rare.
▪ Better for Seifert would be to concentrate on the more obvious facts.
▪ But the most obvious fact about the social world is that what happens in it has meaning for the inhabitants.
▪ Unspoken was the obvious fact that people already knew whether they had a family member on board.
▪ This should not obscure the obvious fact that they are also profit-making concerns, too.
▪ Maxim's assumption came as a relief- and a very obvious fact.
▪ The two broken marriages and then the obvious fact that he didn't think much of her.
▪ The obvious fact that people of comfortable circumstance live peacefully together and those afflicted by poverty do not goes largely unnoticed.
problem
▪ But despite the obvious problems it's hoped the unit will be operational within two weeks.
▪ There are obvious problems for the stability of the state if these different groups are in conflict with each other.
▪ Anxiety in the horse has many other unfortunate side effects besides the obvious problems of handling and riding such horses.
▪ Out on crowded Third Avenue, the people with obvious problems look a bit different to me now.
▪ A second obvious problem is the striking blank where normally we would expect to find discussion of content.
▪ The most obvious problem, the coup de grace, was a quite unexpected side-effect.
▪ Judicial disagreement of this kind presents an immediate and obvious problem for conventionalism.
question
▪ An obvious question is the nature of the morphogen.
▪ The obvious question is: Why?
▪ Leaving aside antislavery as a convenience for particular interests, an obvious question occurs.
▪ The obvious question to ask would be: why do mice give birth to mice and elephants to elephants?
▪ The next obvious question concerns the reasonableness of such a range of conditions.
▪ That raises obvious questions about the priorities of federal drug enforcement agents and prosecutors.
reason
▪ Even if he did politely turn down Branson's parting offer of a seat on Virgin's inaugural flight - for obvious reasons.
▪ And certainly not any specific church, club, movement, party or Klan, for obvious reasons.
▪ Unfortunately it is not easy - for obvious reasons - to study modern submarine lava flows in their proper environment.
▪ The ratio is 60 percent womens bathrooms to mens in the new arena for, ahem, obvious reasons.
▪ For obvious reasons, laser beams or submerged fluorescent wires can not be used to mark the start line.
▪ For obvious reasons it is never fully expressible in words.
▪ There are two obvious reasons why it may be hard to set up this market.
▪ For many and obvious reasons, it was impossible to take much time away from her work and home.
sign
▪ There are now obvious signs that we are here to stay.
▪ Only one showed no obvious signs of violence.
▪ After a quick look round to make sure that weed left no obvious signs of our own visit, we left.
▪ They maybe the only obvious signs of social status.
▪ Check fish for obvious signs of bacterial disease before you buy them.
▪ The most obvious sign was a blitz called by defensive coordinator Fred Whittingham with just over two minutes left in the game.
▪ In the pages that follow I will characterize some of the more obvious signs of a badly organized and motivated operation.
▪ The only obvious sign of wear and tear is a groaning gearbox, while the engine smokes a little on start-up.
target
▪ New auditors are for ever charging at birth as an obvious target.
▪ Far from being impartial, he had an obvious target.
▪ Clearly the review might shift this balance making pensions the obvious target.
▪ My cousin was simply the easiest and most obvious target.
▪ Child benefit may be another obvious target for the departmental review.
▪ It has been an obvious target for economy-minded governments.
▪ They were an obvious target for hungry birds and were easily picked off.
thing
▪ As well as the more obvious things like reducing energy costs and recycling where possible, the community is benefiting from the programme.
▪ This may seem a startlingly obvious thing to say.
▪ We knew we wanted to do obvious things like health.
▪ The obvious thing was to start backtracking.
▪ The obvious thing was the gold watch, wrapped up at the bottom in a bit of cloth.
▪ To drop it as soon as it was ready seemed natural, the obvious thing to do.
▪ It's the most obvious thing to do.
▪ For the most obvious thing about them is that they have led to continuous bodily improvement.
way
▪ Perhaps the most obvious way to build strength is by training with weights.
▪ One obvious way of conceptualizing generality is in terms of knowledge.
▪ In a society that values freedom above all, the obvious way to celebrate a centenary is just to keep driving.
▪ The most obvious way to get through to them was via the media.
▪ One obvious way to minimize this problem is to reduce the number of different data formats.
▪ Another obvious way of increasing plasticity is to mix a relatively fine plastic clay with a stiff clay.
▪ In nature, the obvious way is through genetic relatedness - kinship.
PHRASES FROM OTHER ENTRIES
immediately obvious/apparent
▪ As is immediately obvious, a psychotherapy based on this approach is quite different from one based on the older questions.
▪ It may be obvious that the postholes represent structures, but little else may be immediately apparent.
▪ On the other hand, no new direction was immediately apparent.
▪ Once a site is put back into production, it may not be immediately obvious that the archaeological sites have been destroyed.
▪ Over half a million people have watched the first two Tests and two things are immediately obvious.
▪ The distinction between primary and secondary sources will not always be immediately obvious to the pupil.
▪ The reason for this difficulty is immediately apparent.
EXAMPLES FROM OTHER ENTRIES
▪ "Why is she leaving?" "Well, it's obvious, isn't it?"
▪ an obvious mistake
▪ For obvious reasons, we've had to cancel tonight's performance.
▪ It's obvious that Paul is in love with Liz.
▪ It's obvious that something is wrong.
▪ It should be obvious to everyone that we need to make some changes.
▪ It was obvious from the start that my parents disliked Nancy.
▪ She tried to look grateful, but her disappointment was obvious.
▪ There is an obvious connection between the two murders.
▪ There was no obvious reason for their behavior.
EXAMPLES FROM CORPUS
▪ But the instability of the political structures and other weaknesses were obvious in the struggles between the factions within the party.
▪ From the moment they joined the others outside the shop, it was obvious that the twins were sulking.
▪ The benefits of truth-telling are obvious.
▪ The solution is also obvious - please check envelopes are not too tightly packed, if in doubt use a bigger envelope!
▪ There are obvious problems for the stability of the state if these different groups are in conflict with each other.
▪ They expressed their surprise since they, like the doctors who treated them, associated obvious injury with obvious pain.