What's the difference between
and
Enter two words to compare and contrast their definitions, origins, and synonyms to better understand how those words are related.

Obviate vs Obvious - What's the difference?

obviate | obvious |

As a verb obviate

is to bypass a requirement or make it unnecessary; to avoid a future problem or difficult situation.

As an adjective obvious is

easily discovered, seen, or understood; self-explanatory.

obviate

English

Verb

(obviat)
  • To bypass a requirement or make it unnecessary; to avoid a future problem or difficult situation.
  • They saved enough money for their purchase and obviated the need to borrow.
  • * 1826', Richard Reece, ''A Practical Dissertation on the Means of '''Obviating & Treating the Varieties of Costiveness , page 181:
  • A mild dose of a warm active aperient to obviate costiveness, or to produce two motions daily, is generally very beneficial.
  • * 2004 , David J. Anderson, Agile Management for Software Engineering , page 180:
  • Some change requests, rather than extend the scope, obviate some of the existing scope of a project.
  • * 2008 , William S. Kroger, Clinical and Experimental Hypnosis: In Medicine, Dentistry, and Psychology , page 163:
  • Thus, to obviate resistance, the discussion should be relevant to the patient?s problems.

    obvious

    English

    Adjective

    (en adjective)
  • Easily discovered, seen, or understood; self-explanatory.
  • *
  • *:Carried somehow, somewhither, for some reason, on these surging floods, were these travelers, of errand not wholly obvious to their fellows, yet of such sort as to call into query alike the nature of their errand and their own relations. It is easily earned repetition to state that Josephine St. Auban's was a presence not to be concealed.
  • *{{quote-magazine, date=2013-08-17, volume=408, issue=8849, magazine=(The Economist)
  • , title= Down towns , passage=It is not obvious , to economists anyway, that cities should exist at all. Crowds of people mean congestion and costly land and labour. But there are also well-known advantages to bunching up. When transport costs are sufficiently high a firm can spend more money shipping goods to clusters of consumers than it saves on cheap land and labour.}}

    Synonyms

    * See also .

    Antonyms

    * unobvious * non-obvious * subtle

    Derived terms

    * obviously * obviousness

    See also

    * plain * clear * evident * manifest