(as) plain as day
Very obvious or noticeable; very easy to understand. It's plain as day that they like each other—they've been flirting all evening! In the end, the solution was as plain as day. These directions are plain as day, so you shouldn't have any questions.
(as) plain as the nose on (one's) face
Very obvious or noticeable. Those two have been flirting all afternoon—it's as plain as the nose on your face! In the end, the solution was as plain as the nose on my face. Come on, I know you guys have been scheming behind my back this whole time. It was as plain as the nose on my face.
Farlex Dictionary of Idioms. © 2024 Farlex, Inc, all rights reserved.
plain as day/the nose on your face
As obvious as can be. The earliest similes for patently obvious were plain as a packstaff or pikestaff (that is, the staff on which a peddler or hobo carried his bundles), used from the fifteenth century, and plain as the nose on your face, from the sixteenth century. The former is obsolescent, at least in America; the latter is still very current, heard even more than plain as day, a nineteenth-century locution.
The Dictionary of Clichés by Christine Ammer Copyright © 2013 by Christine Ammer