Right Under Your Nose

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Meaning:

Right Under Your Nose means Right in front of someone; in a place that is easy to find.

Origin:

It is common for this expression to appear as it was right under my nose. It describes something that a person couldn’t find even though it was very close and in an obvious place. It can describe physical objects, or it can describe an idea or realization.

“Oops, it was right under my nose.”

It is said this phrase dates back to at least the 1500s, but I could not find any examples of it from that time. The earliest I could find it is from the 1600s. For example, the phrase is seen in The Copie of a Letter sent from The Roaring Boyes in Elizium, from the year 1641:

Can you my worthy hosts sit and see those
That make you weare od money in your hose,
Under your nose triumphing?”

We now use the saying as “Right under your nose” The earliest I could find of ‘right under your nose’ is from the newspaper The Sydney Morning Herald, November 1856:

“‘Well, have you detected my forgery?’ said he, with the greatest coolness, ‘No,’ replied the head expert laughing, ‘for a good reason—you never sent it.’ ‘Why, there it lies right under your nose, the third to the left, and here is the original I took it from.'”

Example:

Today we still use the phrase “Right under your nose” as a way to say what you are looking for was so close to you, it was right under your nose. An example sentence is:

“Heather searched her house for her car keys. Later that day, she found them in her jacket pocket; they were right under her nose the whole time.”

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