Definition of

Obvious

In order to know the meaning of the term obviousness, it is necessary to discover its etymological origin. In this case, we have to emphasize that it derives from Latin, specifically it is the result of the sum of the following lexical components of said language:

-The prefix “ob-”, which is equivalent to “towards” or “against”.

-The noun “via”, which can be translated as “way”.

-The suffix “-dad”, which is used to indicate “quality”.

Obviousness is the condition of obvious : evident, clear. The term is usually used to name an expression that is elementary, axiomatic or undeniable.

ObviousFor example: “I'm going to say something obvious, but I would like to be on vacation and not have to work so late,” “Although it is obvious, it is important to remember that it is best to compare prices before deciding on a purchase if you intend not to waste money” , “It is obvious that the economic crisis has deteriorated the quality of life of millions of people” .

The word evidence, in addition to those already indicated, is another one that can be used as a synonym for obviousness.

Suppose a footballer suffers a terrible injury in the middle of a match: open fracture of the tibia and fibula . The young man is taken by ambulance to a hospital and the team doctor tells journalists that recovery will take at least eight months. Minutes later, when the player's inability to play again in the short term is evident, a journalist announces as a scoop that the player will not be called up for the next match. It can be stated, in this framework, that what was expressed by the communicator is nothing more than obvious .

It is important to mention that certain terms in our language do not need clarifications about their meaning because these are obvious. It should not be said “school of fish” , to cite one case, since the notion of school refers precisely to a group of these animals. There is no such thing as a “shoal of dogs” or a “shoal of trees.” Similarly, an archipelago is a group of islands, so clarifying “archipelago of islands” is obvious.

Throughout history, we have known famous phrases that use the term obvious that concerns us now. This would be the case, for example, of the words spoken by the Basque writer Lucía Baskaran in 1998: «I radically believe that women are people. It seems obvious, but many are still not clear about it.

In the same way, the Mexican writer Jordi Soler also said: "Fire, look how obvious, burns one thing, but at the same time paves the way for another to grow."

In addition to everything indicated, we cannot ignore the existence of several works that use the term obvious that concerns us now in their titles. This would be the case of the book “The obviousness of being a novel: The house of the spirits”. Horacio Saavedra is the author of this work, published in 2014, in which he establishes a series of reasons and criteria to determine whether this novel by Isabel Allende really is one or not.