Home / Words / visibleNo. 0362

visible

/ˈvɪzəbl//ˈvɪzəbl/·adjective
able to be seen; plain and noticeable
Fig. 1 — A whole scene waits unseen, complete but out of sight.
01Definition

Visible means able to be seen — present to the eye, or by extension plain and noticeable. From the Latin videre, 'to see,' it marks the line between what is hidden and what light and attention reach. A star is visible once the sky darkens; a change is visible once its effects show. The word also carries a social sense — a visible minority, a highly visible campaign — something that cannot be overlooked. What is visible is not always important, but it is, at least, no longer concealed.

02In use
  • iThe mountains were barely visible through the morning haze.
  • iiThe damage was plainly visible to anyone willing to scrutinize the report.
  • iiiA visible scar can linger long after the wound itself has healed.
03Collocations
  • clearly visible
  • barely visible
  • visible to the naked eye
  • a visible improvement
  • visible signs of

Family visibly (adverb) · visibility (noun) · vision (noun)

04Relations

=noticeable, apparent, observable, conspicuous, evident

≠invisible, hidden, obscure

06TOEFL & IELTS

Useful for description and for reporting data in IELTS Task 1 ('a visible upward trend'). Mind the collocations: clearly / barely / highly visible. The noun visibility appears in academic and environmental texts ('poor visibility'). Don't overuse 'visible' for 'obvious' — when you mean it stands out, conspicuous or prominent may fit better.

07Asked
Is it spelled 'visible' or 'visable'?
Visible — with -ible, not -able. 'Visable' is a common misspelling, but it is always wrong. The memory hook is the root: visible comes from Latin visibilis, and its whole family keeps the i — vision, visibility, visual. When the ear cannot tell -ible from -able, the eye can fall back on the relatives, which all vote for i.
What does visible mean?
Able to be seen — present to the eye, or by extension plain and noticeable. A star is visible once the sky darkens; a change is visible once its effects show. The scene above makes the point sharp: light opens across a landscape and the hills simply appear, having stood there unseen the whole time. Being visible was never something the hills did — it was something the light did to them.
What does 'visibility' mean?
The noun of visible — how far or how well things can be seen. Weather and driving use it literally ('poor visibility in fog'); business and politics use it figuratively ('the campaign raised the brand's visibility'). Both keep the core: visibility is the degree to which something is exposed to view, whether that is a mountain road in mist or a company trying to be noticed.
What is the difference between visible and obvious?
Visible means able to be seen; obvious means easy to understand or impossible to miss. Something can be visible but not obvious — a small clue in plain sight — or obvious without being visible, like an obvious lie. When you mean a thing physically stands out, conspicuous or prominent is often sharper than visible, which strictly claims only that a thing is not hidden.
What does 'highly visible' mean?
Very easily seen or noticed — used both literally (a highly visible safety vest) and socially (a highly visible campaign or public figure). The social sense is the interesting one: to be highly visible is to be much in the public eye, unable to be overlooked. Note that visibility is not importance — highly visible things attract attention without necessarily deserving it.