under someone's nose
1
6.4
- idiom
- Informal
:
ante los ojos de alguien
- They were having a great time at the party, completely oblivious to the fun happening right under their noses.
- right under someone's nose
Examples
-
They're happening right under your nose.
-
They explained that everything had been happening under her nose.
-
What many men seek is often right under their nose.
-
This is dynamite, the two of us living right under his nose.
-
That's why I was so devastated to discover that... she was sleeping with Richard... right under my nose.
-
She found the lost keys sitting right under her nose on the kitchen counter.
-
The opportunity for a promotion was right under his nose, but he didn't notice it.
Synonyms
12
4.9
Very close and easy to see but not noticed
Happens openly without people nearby noticing
How Obvious
- Informal
- Informal
1
6.4
38
2.7
125
1.1
34
5.2
12
3.4
Surface Forms
Morphology
The phrase literally expresses spatial proximity ('under' + 'someone's' + 'nose'), so the basic sense of something being very close is directly derivable from the constituents. However, the idiomatic extension that this closeness occurs 'without their knowledge' requires a pragmatic/ironic inference rather than strict compositionality, so a B1 learner may not fully predict the unawareness component without exposure.
Etymology
The idiom under someone's nose comes from the simple image of something lying under a person's nose while they do not see it. So it now means 'in someone's presence or nearby without them noticing'.