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Wiktionary
on the face of it

adv. (context idiomatic English) apparently; as far as can be seen or determined.

WordNet
on the face of it

adv. from appearances alone; "irrigation often produces bumper crops from apparently desert land"; "the child is seemingly healthy but the doctor is concerned"; "had been ostensibly frank as to his purpose while really concealing it"-Thomas Hardy; "on the face of it the problem seems minor" [syn: apparently, seemingly, ostensibly]

Usage examples of "on the face of it".

And on the other hand, Every man is a liar,(3) weak, unstable and frail, especially in his words, so that one ought scarcely ever to believe what seemeth to sound right on the face of it.

While, on the face of it, the Queen's household was an oasis of calm and happiness in a troubled world, it was in fact shortly to witness a drama that would end in tragedy for each of its chief inhabitants.

It has nothing to do with the main fact -- can't have, on the face of it.

If a technologically sophisticated people of twenty-five thousand years from now believes that the future is not fixed, it is plain on the face of it that they know something about the matter that we don't know.

Because today you will place a bet which on the face of it will appear so ludicrous that he of the golden gonads will rock to and fro upon his chair doubled up with laughter.