These words all mean readily perceived. Plain , the most general word of the group, means clear and understandable, and suggests strongly that there is little possibility of confusion or mistake in perceiving the object concerned.

• The plain fact of the matter is that the man lied; His guilt is plain – the stolen money was found in his briefcase.

Apparent and evident are close synonyms, both indicating the easily perceived or recognizable. Of the two, apparent is perhaps more commonly used when referring to something visible, although both words are used to describe mental perceptions as well as sensory ones.

• It was soon apparent to the crowd that our horse was winning the race; From the quick success of the business, it was evident that he had invested his money wisely; He spoke with evident sarcasm.

Because apparent can also mean seeming to be, as opposed to being in fact, its use may be ambiguous (especially before nouns), and evident may therefore be preferred in some contexts. For example, apparent defeat could mean that the defeat was more evident than real; evident defeat , on the other hand, simply states flatly that the defeat was plain , and makes no suggestion of reality contradicting appearance.

Obvious , manifest and conspicuous mean immediately apparent, unmistakably true; all imply that the issue is so unequivocal and plain that contradiction would be absurd. Manifest suggests that outward signs or actions may be taken as revealing inward character; it points to openness and explicitness as qualities that make something plain: manifest disapproval of another’s actions, expressed in forthright language; the manifest bias of the referee, who turned a blind eye to infringements by the home side but never failed to penalize the visitors. Conspicuous implies that something stands out, unavoidably striking the eye or mind as different or irregular: a conspicuous defect in the cloth; a conspicuous typographical error, with one whole line of type printed upside-down; a discrepancy in the company accounts so conspicuous that no auditor could have failed to notice it. Obvious describes something too conspicuous to be concealed and too apparent to be disputed: an obvious gimmick to compensate for the playwright’s flagging invention. The word is often used to point up the disparity between form and meaning in disingenuous gestures: obvious propaganda for maintaining the status quo, concealed within the high-flown plea for law and order; Though couched in elegant diplomatic language, the note obviously threw cold water on any hopes Israel may have entertained for U.S. intervention in the Middle east crisis.

These words refer to large areas of usually level country which may be farm or grazing land, or unsettled wilderness. Plain is the general word here for such countryside, giving no information in itself as to fertility or other topographical facts: plains that stretched for hundreds of miles; the cities of the plain . Steppe suggests a specific geographical locale – that of Russia – but is otherwise general, like plain , with as little indication of fertility or infertility: Mongol tribes that fanned out across the steppes . While desert suggests no geographical placement, it does specifically point to barren and infertile regions lacking in rainfall and composed mainly of sandy soil or undulating sand dunes: the Simpson Desert of Central Australia; an irrigation project to make the desert fruitful.

All the other words here point to a specific kind of countryside and suggest, as well, a specific geographical locale. Prairie suggests the fertile but largely unforested plains of the U.S. Midwest: the rich loam of Nebraska prairies . Veldt points to the fertile plains of South Africa; these are by and large grassy but unforested and filled with an array of wildlife. Unlike the prairies of North America, much of the veldt has not been converted into farmland, and is still wild and pristine. Bush suggests, less exclusively, land that is wild, unsettled and covered with scrub growth, as in East Africa: steps taken by the Kenya government to encourage cattle-raising in the bush . The word is applied also to the backcountry of certain other lands, including Australia and New Zealand, designating an extensive, unsettled or sparsely populated region thought of as being uncivilized, rugged or wild. It is also used generally in Australia for areas of limited population, even though close to or coming within the boundaries of major cities or towns. The Canadian bush is unsettled northern forest land.

The pampas are the great treeless plains of South America, extending from the Atlantic to the Andes, south of the Amazon River. Like the East African bush country, the pampas are used mainly for cattle grazing, the land not being fertile enough to yield much in the way of cereal crops: gauchos who muster cattle out on the Argentine pampas . Range is the equivalent Nor American term for the same kind of countryside or desert on the western, intermingling features of both.

Savanna , used of country in the south-east part of the U.S., designates a tract of level, treeless land covered with low vegetation. More broadly, the term refers to a large area of tropical or subtropical grassland, such as an African pasture or a South American campo, covered in part with trees and spiny shrubs, and found in regions undergoing alternate rainy and dry seasons. Tundra , by contrast, refers to a flat or rolling, treeless, often marshy plain of Arctic or near-Arctic regions, as of Siberia, the Scandinavian countries and the Eskimo-inhabited parts of North America. The tundras have permanently frozen subsoil and are poor in vegetation, though they are covered with moss in summer and furnish forage for such animals as reindeer: Finns who raise reindeer on the tundra in northern Finland.