on the face of it
Proposed by a contributor, not yet supported by evidence.
Where it’s used:
Used
Widespread English
Examples
The case has now been listed for hearing before the Commissioners.
Ideally, the objective must be to have the accommodation returned to the same condition it was in before the lease.
British National Corpus sentence via the MAGPIE corpus (CC BY 4.0, retrieved 2026-07-30)
Sources & notes
Listed in Wiktionary’s “English idioms” category (retrieved 2026-07-29); definition pending editorial review. Definition drafted by AI (@cf/meta/llama-3.3-70b-instruct-fp8-fast) and auto-approved by rule on 2026-07-31; pending editor spot-check.
Common questions
What does “on the face of it” mean?
Apparently or at first glance Literally: based on the surface appearance
Is “on the face of it” formal or informal?
No register label has been reviewed yet — treat it as neutral and check the usage notes above.