plain as day

Idioms  

1. Also, plain as the nose on your face. Very obvious, quite clear, as in It's plain as day that they must sell their house before they can buy another, or It's plain as the nose on your face that she's lying. These similes have largely replaced the earlier plain as a packstaff or pikestaff, from the mid-1500s, alluding to the stick on which a peddler carried his wares over his shoulder. The first term, from the late 1800s, is probably a shortening of plain as the sun at midday; the variant dates from the late 1600s.

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Example Sentences

Baker pushes the comedy, but, just as with Ani, the injustice of it all is plain as day.

From Los Angeles Times • Oct. 16, 2024

And the messages, once they were deciphered, were as plain as day.

From Scientific American • Oct. 12, 2023

But here, plain as day, was evidence there was something not right about Hugh Parsons.

From Slate • Oct. 31, 2022

But then I got it, plain as day, in Day 3.

From Washington Post • Mar. 11, 2021

There were other questions, too, like what the relation was between her and the little white kids that she watched and also between her and her “daddy,” who plain as day was not her daddy.

From "Out of Darkness" by Ashley Hope Pérez

Related Words

• conspicuous
• indisputable
• noticeable
• obvious
• palpable
• unmistakable
• visible