If "clearly evident" is redundant, what word or phrase suggests being indisputable but not readily apparent?

Question

A recent question asks whether the modifier "clearly" changes the meaning of "evident". I would have said, prior to examining a few dictionaries, that evident did not necessarily mean readily apparent, but to my surprise it does.

This brings me to ask what word or expression would mean something can be taken as a true fact, but not through an easily constructed (not obvious or readily apparent) rationale?

For example, if Sherlock Holmes says something is true while everyone else is still sitting on their hands, then it is evident to Holmes, but not to the rest of the world. So, from everyone else's point of view, it is not readily apparent, and (by definition) apparently it is not evident, clear, or clearly evident at all, based on the dictionary definitions. But (let's stipulate) it is true and deducible from the observable evidence. What would we call this?

Update

An update is highlighted above. I can see from some of the answers and comments that I may have gone off my mark with the phrase "not through an easy-to-follow rationale”, and I have modified the question to correct this. I understand that there can be rationales, arguments, or proofs that, once explained, may or may not be easy to follow. What I intend is that the rationale to support the indisputable conclusion is not (initially) easy to recognize or construct (not readily apparent) in the first place. I apologize for the confusion. (The original can be seen in the change history.)

Update 2

Shortly after offering a bounty to this request, I recalled a single word that I now believe is a very good match to the parameters specified in this inquiry as it is stated above. That word has not yet been suggested (or approached) by any answer or comment (active or deleted) at the time of this edit. This request is changed to a single word request. (However, if you feel a single word fits well but not without some additional supporting words, please offer your thoughts in an answer.) While my curiosity for the term has already been met, the request and bounty remain as an open challenge. I will post my own answer once the bounty has expired and been awarded.

Answer 1

One word that comes to mind is "provable" or "scientifically provable" with the connotation of proof such as used in sciences like geometry or philosophy. The method that Sherlock Holmes used was based on how scientific proofs are built. There are many things which science has proven which, at least at one point of time, were not evident to many people. Even today, I'm sure a vast number of people do not find the principals of calculus evident, although they are certainly provable.

In philosophical terms you can prove something using a posteri knowledge or a priori knowledge. A posteri knowledge relies on empirical evidence, though it may be subject to false results especially with limited observations (if you flip a coin 3 times and the coin turns up heads all 3 times that doesn't mean it will always be heads, for instance). However, given enough observations, something proven a posteri can be quite evident to anyone aware of the many observations.

On the other hand, something proven a priori may not be evident to many people even when they are fully aware of the logic of the a priori finding. For instance, when the concept that "all men are created equal" was put forth as an a priori finding, despite the detail of the support, it remained non-evident to many people, so I'll also submit (complex) "a priori knowledge" as something that includes many things that are not necessary evident but are considered true. To be more specific, I mean non-definitional a priori knowledge since most definitions are considered a priori knowledge and are usually generally accepted as evident to all. "Red is a color" is a priori but also, in my opinion, evident based on the accepted definition of "color". So I don't mean simple definitional a priori knowledge. I'm referring more to more complex a priori knowledge such as "everyone has a right to freedom."

I think it's important to mention both "provable" and "complex, non-definitional a priori knowledge" because together these cover, I believe, the whole range of what could be considered, at least by some people, true but not evident to many other people. The Sherlock Holmes method using scientific proofs would not capture the whole range of a priori knowledge because this knowlege is generally not of the type that can be known to a scientific certainty, and Holmes builds on things that are more provable using a posteri knowledge. On the other hand, I couldn't only mention a priori knowledge because there are many things which are scientifically provable but of a very complex nature so these remain non-evident to many people simply because of their complexity. So many provable things which are a posteri are also part of this answer.

EDIT: After seeing the answer that received the bounty and some of the comments from the questioner, I am disappointed, to say the least. The ultimate bounty was awarded to cryptic. However, the question required that the non-apparent thing also be a true fact and words like cryptic do not take any position on whether something is true or not. Something can be cryptic and true just as likely as it can be cryptic and not true. So to use cryptic would not convey that something is a true fact. I offer the following:

1. Even in the answer provided for cryptic which included the definition, no part of that definition or answer claimed that cryptic means something true or a fact.

2. Cryptic is often a word associated with the occult which I think most people believe has connotation which is the opposite of truth: the primary definition from dictionary.com is "hidden; secret; occult". Cryptic is also a word associated with Masonic organizations. This website published by the Grand Council of Cryptic Masons talks about the Cryptic Rite which it says is part of "a Masonic allegory. Freemasonry is very philosophical and teaches its ideals by allegory or story." Obviously an allegory is not a true fact, but it can be cryptic. http://www.yorkriteofcalifornia.org/council/whatis.html

3. Cryptic is often applied to emotions and behavior and lots of other things which are not true facts. Poet Edward Arlington Robinson once wrote, "With a cryptic idiotic melancholy" to describe the observed emotions of some birds. One rarely uses idiotic to describe something one believes to be a true fact. Similarly Victor Marie Hugo in "Notre Dame de Paris" wrote "This is the second transformation of architecture—no longer cryptic, sacerdotal, inevitable, but artistic, progressive, popular—beginning with the return from the Crusades and ending with Louis XI." Here cryptic is simply implying that the older style was less accessible, not that it was more true than the later style.

4. Cryptic is often used when the truth of something is unknown. For instance the Voynich Manuscript is often described as cryptic but people have no idea if it's authentic or a hoax, though most seem to lean towards it likely being a cryptic hoax.

Similes for cryptic which the questioner also liked, such as obscure (his second choice per his comment), suffer from the same problems in that they give not indication that something is a true fact. Their definitions do not state that they mean something true or something which is a fact. They are often applied to emotions and behavior and many other things which are not true facts. They can be, and often are, applied to things where the trueness of the thing is currently unknown. One recent tripadvisor comment warned of "false advertising and obscure location" which has the connotation of a location which is deceptively difficult to reach for the unwary traveler. If I refer to an "obscure religion" I don't mean I believe it is the one, true religion.

So summing up a long rant, I'm hugely disappointed because the questioner asked for a word or phrase that also meant a true fact and then ignored that extremely difficult and challenging requirement in selecting the bounty winner.

Answer 2

The simplest word for "something deducible, albeit with difficult, from the evidence available" is merely deduction. Although Shaneka is collecting downvotes for his answer giving it, the best adjective is verifiable, which is rooted in the word for "truth".

But slower minds might debate such a thing. As a term for something immune to challenge, you might want self-evident, meaning it provides the evidence for its own correctness.

A self-evident conclusion might be quite difficult to reach from any other starting point, but once stated, is indisputable.

A related word which literally means "unquestionable" is axiomatic.

Answer 3

Some truths are self-evident or prima facie, but many truths are not self-evident. It might be obvious in hindsight and that is frequently described as 20/20 (or perfect vision). Further, the truth might be said to be obscured, masked or hidden depending on context.

Finally, Merriam-Webster gives these antonyms to self-evident -

arguable, contestable, debatable, disputable, doubtable, dubious, moot, problematic (also problematical), questionable

The best phrase I can think of is still obvious in hind-sight. Such a truth is unarguable once understood, but clearly not self-evident.

Answer 4

This might be a bit too obvious but the term an inconspicuous truth seems to be a somewhat popular phrase to describe this.

There's a group called inconspicuous truth who try to prove things about UFOs and stuff like that.

Building (dot) co (dot) uk has an article titled "Planning and biodiversity: An inconspicuous truth."

Might fit your criteria.

Answer 5

The answer that came to mind for me was an 'unavoidable conclusion', but this term generally follows an explanation of the evidence of a fact. However, I find no real case where such a word or phrase would be used; after all, the only time you would speak of something as the truth when others cannot clearly discover it is when you are lying, or when you have no respect for the intelligence of your audience, or you intend on illuminating the path by which you came to know this truth. Thus, the unavoidable conclusion is that there is no need for such a phrase, except the one I have given.

Answer 6

In a comment on this question, I drew a parallel to NP-complete problems. That is, problems which are known, in a rigorous, mathematical way, to be easy to verify once a solution is supplied, but using the best known, state-of-the-art methods, intractably hard to solve in the first place (i.e. the best known ways to solve them all have cases which take exponential time with respect to the input).

What we want, here, is a common (or at least not uncommon) word that captures this essence of "NP completeness", in an informal, ideally intuitive way. It seems likely, almost necessary, that such a word should exist: humanity has been acutely aware of this kind of problem for millennia. In fact, we often construct such problems for fun.

That's right. People love puzzles. We love riddling . A problem which is hard to solve, but whose solution is obvious in hindsight, was right under our noses all along, or sometimes simply hidden in plain sight, is, by definition, a puzzle.

But surely Shelock Holmes solved mysteries, not puzzles? Well, yes, because his cases were not guaranteed to have solutions, as puzzles are (though Holmes solved all his cases, so far as I know, in real life many mysteries remain eternally unexplained). But none the less, Sherlock's native puzzle-solving skills served him well; because, according to Wikipedia the key skills required to solve puzzles are:

People with a high level of inductive reasoning aptitude may be better at solving such puzzles than others. But puzzles based upon inquiry and discovery may be solved more easily by those with good deduction skills.

Boy, was this question a puzzler.

Answer 7

Two phrases one might encounter in this area are

the surprising truth [about ...]

and

Strange but true.

Answer 8

You could call it an implicit truth, or implicitly true.

wiktionary: implicit

Adjective
implicit (not comparable)
1. Implied indirectly, without being directly expressed
2. Contained in the essential nature of something but not openly shown

or a hard-won truth

wiktionary: hard-won

Adjective
hard-won
Having been obtained with effort, despite difficulty and hardship.

or an inferred truth or inference

wiktionary: inference

Noun
inference
1. (uncountable) The act or process of inferring by deduction or induction.
2. (countable) That which is inferred; a truth or proposition drawn from another which is admitted or supposed to be true; a conclusion; a deduction.

Answer 9

cryptic or cryptical
having a meaning that is mysterious or obscure. _O.D
intentionally very difficult to understand or make sense of. _TFD

Origin

early 17th century: from late Latin crypticus, from Greek kruptikos, from kruptos 'hidden'.

Answer 10

The request is asking for a suitable substitute for evident, where, rather than suggesting something is a fact that is obvious, it suggests something is a fact that not only is not obvious, but that it requires the powers of mind and observation that someone like Sherlock Holmes would possess.

The word that I found most fitting to these conditions is abstruse (Wordnet Dictionary):

difficult to penetrate; incomprehensible to one of ordinary understanding or knowledge;

Another definition (Dictionary.com):

hard to understand; recondite; esoteric:

Recondite (Dictionary.com) would be a very good alternative, with nearly identical meaning:

dealing with very profound, difficult, or abstruse subject matter; beyond ordinary knowledge or understanding; esoteric; little known; obscure

I found this entertaining article (Vocbulary.com), which I think captures the meaning very well, and I’ll quote it fully:

Abstruse things are difficult to understand because they are so deep and intellectually challenging. It might be hard to figure out how a toilet flushes but the technology that goes into making the Internet function is abstruse.

The Latin roots of the word abstruse are about concealing or hiding something, which is a good way to remember the meaning of this word. It is useful when describing something that is overly confusing, or if someone is deliberately making a story or a situation more complicated than necessary. It sounds and looks like obtuse, but abstruse is almost its opposite. Obtuse is dull or lacking a sharpness of intellect. While Abstruse is president of the chess club, Obtuse is hanging out by the parking lot smoking cigarettes.

As far as Sherlock Holmes is concerned, I found the following quotes from some of the collected works by Arthur Conan Doyle:

From The Sign of Four

“My mind," he said, "rebels at stagnation. Give me problems, give me work, give me the most abstruse cryptogram or the most intricate analysis, and I am in my own proper atmosphere. I can dispense then with artificial stimulants. But I abhor the dull routine of existence. I crave for mental exaltation. That is why I have chosen my own particular profession, or rather created it, for I am the only one in the world.”

Here, from The Naval Treaty, is one that may have special meaning to some

“Oh, the mystery!” he answered, coming back with a start to the realities of life. “Well, it would be absurd to deny that the case is a very abstruse and complicated one, but I can promise you that I will look into the matter and let you know any points which may strike me.”

“Do you see any clue?”

“You have furnished me with seven, but, of course, I must test them before I can pronounce upon their value.”

“You suspect some one?”

“I suspect myself.”

“What!”

“Of coming to conclusions too rapidly.”

The character Dr. Gregory House, of the U.S. television program House, (hat tip to Mari-Lou A) has a Holmes-like pit-bull tenacity (with all the same scariness to some) for resolving deadly afflictions. He was described in an article of the Los Angeles Times (Patt Morrison, July 20, 2012) this way:

His cause wasn’t the patient; it was solving the puzzle of what was killing the patient. Some of the abstruse ailments he diagnosed were probably a footnote on Page 1063 of a textbook in a real med-school class taught at 8 o’clock on a Monday morning, but no matter. Hypochondriacs of the world swooned.

Answer 11

It's a tricky question to answer, but I'd argue that revelation could fit your requirements in certain contexts.

something revealed or disclosed, especially a striking disclosure, as of something not before realized (source: dictionary.com)

Clearly the word has a particular meaning in theology and could imply the disclosure of a divine fact that could not be realised by logical reasoning alone. However, it can be used colloquially to describe a fact that perhaps should have been more apparent: "when I was first told, it was a revelation to me. Now, I can't think why I didn't see it myself."

Answer 12

I might use the word "Hidden" to replace the idea described ...

Answer 13

(1) your question is very confusing.

" (A) If “clearly evident” is redundant ...

(B) ... what word or phrase suggests being indisputable but not readily apparent?"

part A has no connection to part B.

i. 'clearly evident' is not redundant. (most of the answers to the linked question are utter crap.)

("clearly evident": you could also have "slightly evident" "evident if you turn on the xray machine" "sometimes evident" (depends on the tides) "barely evident" "happily evident" and so on. end of debate. you might as well assert that "tall" or "strong" can not be modified: sometimes strong, extremely strong, a little strong, etc. on here you often get questions with hopelessly silly answers, and that was an example thereof -- !! smiley :) )

ii. if 'clearly evident' was redundant - so what? it is utterly normal in English to emphasise an otherwise logically non-modifiable word with a emphasiser. (You may as well state "In English, that's not a 'redundancy', it's just what we call an 'emphasizer'.") {If one happens to believe "I believe one should never use such emphasizers" - that's nice.}

iii. completely setting aside i and ii -- your "A" has no real connection to your "B". You are simply asking:

"What word or phrase suggests being indisputable but not readily apparent?"

Am I correct?

Another way to phrase what (I believe) you are asking for is, say, "What word means being definitely true, although not obvious or simple to demonstrate to be true."

(Note that this would commonly apply to say certain mathematical theorems.)

Funnily enough, there was just a meta discussion ... "regarding single-word-requests, should we make more use of the answer 'oh, there is no such single word'?"

Quiet simply **there is no single-word* for "definitely true, although not obvious or simple to demonstrate to be true".

Some phrases that come to mind in related situations are: "not immediately obvious", a "hidden truth (not exactly what you mean, but similar), and the witty form: "seemed obvious but only to blah. (So, "The logic proving Fermi's Fourth theorem was obvious .. to Fermi.") A useful word is convoluted ... so, something like "the proof is convoluted" or perhaps "it may look false to you, but it fact it is true: the proof is convoluted".

Watson would simply say in a book "the blah blah is true, although difficult to deduce." Or again, he would use the common form: "It was obvious .. To Holmes," which is a witty way of saying "the proof would be convoluted to anyone else..."

If it helps, I'm going to go ahead and say the closest thing to a single-word answer is convoluted ... but read the caveats

TBC that doesn't stand alone, you'd use it in a short phrase, so, "it's true, but the proof is convoluted". TBC note that convoluted refers to the proof associted with the statement or truth, not the statement or truth itself. Do NOT say "a convoluted truth", that is quite different to a truth with a convoluted proof. {A 'convoluted truth' is what a politician says :) }

To make a coinage, "convoluted" is an Important Associated Single Word (IASW) for the single-word-request at hand. When discussing the issue your question is about, it would be likely you'd use "convoluted" in phrases/sentences - although convoluted is not, per se, a "word which means being definitely true, although not obvious or simple to demonstrate to be true."

Again quite simply there is no sich single word.

Answer 14

True, evident, obvious, verifiable, factual, unelaborated, Authentic depending on context.