Local English word record

on the face of it

adverb · 1 sense

from appearances alone-Thomas Hardy

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Examples

  • 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
  • on the face of it the problem seems minor

Word relationships

Synonyms

apparently, seemingly, ostensibly

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Source and method

This page uses the locally materialized K5English vocabulary cohort. WordNet, where present, is enrichment only and does not determine K-5 admission.

Princeton WordNet 3.0