apparent

Adjective

1. Capable of being seen, or easily seen; open to view; visible to the eye; within sight or view.
   • […] Hesperus, that led / The starry host, rode brightest, till the moon, / Rising in clouded majesty, at length / Apparent queen unveiled her peerless light, / And o’er the dark her silver mantle threw. - 1667, John...
   • Her disappointment was apparent to everyone.
   • The apparent cause of the fire was faulty wiring.
2. Clear or manifest to the understanding; plain; evident; obvious; known; palpable; indubitable.
   • Salisbury: It is apparent foul-play; and ’tis shame / That greatness should so grossly offer it: / So thrive it in your game! and so, farewell. - c. 1596 (date written), William Shakespeare, “The Life and Death of King...
   • When I came to Renfield's room I found him lying on the floor on his left side in a glittering pool of blood. When I went to move him, it became at once apparent that he had received some terrible injuries. - 1897, Bram...
3. Appearing to the eye or mind (distinguished from, but not necessarily opposed to, true or real); seeming.
   • 1785, Thomas Reid, Essays on the Intellectual Powers of Man, Essay II (“Of the Powers we have by means of our External Senses”), Chapter XIX (“Of Matter and of Space”), What George Berkeley calls visible magnitude was...
   • To live on terms of civility, and even of apparent friendship. - 1848, Thomas Babington Macaulay, The History of England from the Accession of James the Second:
   • This apparent motion is due to the finite velocity of light, and the progressive motion of the observer with the earth, as it performs its yearly course about the sun. - 1911, Encyclopædia Britannica, Aberration: