stare in the face

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stare in the face (third-person singular simple present stares in the face, present participle staring in the face, simple past and past participle stared in the face)

1. (transitive) To be extremely visible and obvious to someone.

   Then, one night you wake up with a start at 3 o'clock in the morning with the answer staring you in the face. Or maybe it hits you in the bath, like Archimedes, or while you're on the loo.

   • 1689 (indicated as 1690), [John Locke], An Essay Concerning Humane Understanding. […], London: […] Eliz[abeth] Holt, for Thomas Basset, […], →OCLC:
     , Book I

     The law […] stares them in the face whilst they are breaking it.

• “stare in the face”, in Cambridge English Dictionary, Cambridge, Cambridgeshire: Cambridge University Press, 1999–present.
• “be staring somebody in the face” in Longman Dictionary of Contemporary English, Longman.