on the nose

English

Etymology

(This etymology is missing or incomplete. Please add to it, or discuss it at the Etymology scriptorium.)

Pronunciation

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Prepositional phrase

on the nose

1. Exact; precise; appropriate.

   Synonyms: on the button, on the dot; see also Thesaurus:exactly

   His estimate that they would consume 23 boxes was on the nose.

   • 1961, Jane Jacobs, The Death and Life of Great American Cities, New York: Random House, page 10:

     Boy, are those people getting bargains. Let's see . . . the child population is just about average for the city, on the nose.

   • 1979, Toby Thompson, The '60s Report, Rawson, Wade, →ISBN, page 239:

     “I think the part of me that is sensible, the part that's most on the nose about making decisions about how and what to write, is the part which wants to continue working toward the Turgenev model in fiction. Which is simply based on the idea that novels have to be extremely efficient to survive. […] ”

   • 1995 August 22, Donna Minkowitz, quoting Patrick Stewart, “A New Enterprise”, in The Advocate, number 687/688, →ISSN, page 76:

     In the last three or four years of the series, with the active and very enthusiastic support of the producers and writers, we did go much more on the nose with political issues.

   • 1997 September, Jill Daniel, quoting Sharon Lawrence, “The Metamorph”, in Orange Coast, →ISSN, page 37:

     [Lawrence:] [At the audition,] it was me and five or six women with the large breasts, the short skirts, the hair and makeup. They were just much more on the nose, in terms of what someone who was sexually voracious would look like. I was in a sweater and slacks, hiding the sexuality.

   • 2004, James Scott Bell, Write Great Fiction: Plot & Structure, Penguin, →ISBN, page 146:

     It's best to underplay such moments. In Dickens's time a bit more on-the-nose writing was acceptable. Don't overdo it, or you may lapse into melodrama.

   • 2008, Vincent LoBrutto, Martin Scorsese: A Biography, ABC-Clio, →ISBN, page 272:

     After Hours, originally named the more on the nose, A Night in Soho, was financed by Fox Classics for $3.5 million and scheduled for a forty-night shoot, and a postproduction period of around four months.

   • 2009, Rhona Cameron, The Naked Drinking Club, Random House, →ISBN, page 155:

     She cut me off. ‘So you're just wandering around, are you? Showing them to everyone just for the sake of it?’ She laughed a little. No one had spoken to me like this before; she was bang on the nose.

   • 2011, John Kenneth Muir, Horror Films of the 1990s, McFarland, →ISBN, page 439:

     In particular Miguel/Guy forces Christina/Mia to swallow bad-tasting food before a dining hall full of onlookers. The double meaning is much more on-the-nose in the remake since Guy actually says “swallow it for once in your life,” to his put-upon spouse.

   • 2021 October 2, Sarah Martin, “‘Well on the nose’: is Christian Porter beyond redemption in his WA seat of Pearce?”, in The Guardian‎^[1]:

     “He is well on the nose. Seriously, he is our best chance,” one senior Labor figure says.

2. Unimaginative; over-literal; lacking nuance.

   Synonym: heavy-handed

   Antonyms: nuanced, subtle

   Wearing that floral dress to a garden party was a little on the nose, wouldn't you say?

   • 1974, Joseph Walsh, California Split:

     Susan: Barbara, I really like these red Christmas bulbs.
     Barbara: You think next year we should do the whole Christmas tree in them?
     Susan: Don't you think that's a bit on the nose?

   • 2013 August 12, Stephen Bowie, “The case against Breaking Bad”, in The A.V. Club‎^[2]:

     Although the show gradually grows more subtle, much of the early writing that establishes the characters is so on the nose it hurts. Any time we see Walt in class, it’s certain that what he writes on the chalkboard will echo events in his secret life.

   • 2013 August 19, Marc Hogan, “The Weeknd and Drake ‘Live For’ Whining About Success”, in SPIN‎^[3]:

     The song is sumptuously introspective, but on first impression it's a bit too on the nose.

   • 2021 June 23, Drachinifel, 56:59 from the start, in The Drydock - Episode 150‎^[4], archived from the original on 5 November 2022:

     […] these days there is a long tradition of ships named Warspite, most famously the Queen Elizabeth-class battleship, but when you actually look at the etymology of the name, it is literally "war's spite", the spite of war, which, again, is, um, a little bit on the nose for a ship full of nuclear death.

   • 2022, W. David Marx, chapter 5, in Status and Culture, Viking, →ISBN:

     And even in ordinary times, conspicuous consumption violates the principle of detachment. New Money signals lack plausible deniability; they're too much on the nose.

   • 2022 October 3, Alex Shephard, “Who Will Win the 2022 Nobel Prize in Literature?”, in The New Republic‎^[5], →ISSN:

     Unfortunately, [Cormac McCarthy] won’t win because of the ammoniac mist rising up from the marsh in the inexplicable darkness, the jagged, sepulchral mountains stabbing the horizon, and also because the lead characters of his new books are named Bobby and Alicia Western—simply too on the nose.

   • 2022 November 9, Simon Childs, “Why Is This Vegan Bacon Advert So Annoying?”, in Novara Media‎^[6]:

     Perhaps we should be thanking La Vie. By producing something entirely too on the nose, they’ve shown green consumerism for the utterly uninspiring vision it presents: not only totally inadequate for stopping climate change, but a modified version of the same crap we’ve been eating for years.

3. (slang, Australia, often figurative) Smelly, malodorous.

   Synonyms: see Thesaurus:malodorous

   That bucket of raw prawns you left in the sun is a bit on the nose.

   • 1977, Mungo MacCallum, Mungo's Canberra, University of Queensland Press, →ISBN, page 198:

     Now the process has been reversed; it is doubtful if there has ever been a time when politicians and politics have been more on the nose than the period of the first Fraser government, and this is not only unfunny, but unhealthy.

   • 2004, Wendy Jane Evans, “An Independent Cuss”, in The Diggings Are Silent, Interactive Publications, published 2007, →ISBN, page 94:

     Dog was so stupid he didn't realise the man was very on the nose. Larry smelt good to him, most times, ripe and earthy.

   • 2008 November, Janet Albrechtsen, “Romanticising Australian Conservatism”, in Eric Beecher, editor, The Best Australian Political Writing 2009, Melbourne University Publishing, published 2009, →ISBN, page 236:

     Conservatism was on the nose with voters and if Liberals were to regain government, the party must swing smoothly to the left on a range of social issues.

4. (slang, gambling, of a bet on a horse) To finish first.
   • 1941 February, F. Scott Fitzgerald, “Fun in an Artist’s Studio”, in Esquire‎^[7]:

     It was three o'clock. They were running the third race at Santa Anita and he had ten bucks on the nose.

   • 1962 [1959], William S. Burroughs, Naked Lunch, New York: Grove Press, page 128:

     I once knew a fag dip into the till—not the whole two thousand at once on the nose win or Sing Sing. […]

5. (obsolete slang) On the lookout.
6. Used other than figuratively or idiomatically: see on,‎ nose.

Translations

exact

• Danish: på næsen c
• French: pile poil, exact (fr), précisé (fr)
• Hungarian: pontos (hu)
• Spanish: en punto
• Swedish: på pricken

Further reading

• “on the nose”, in Green’s Dictionary of Slang, Jonathon Green, 2016–present
• Eric Partridge (2005) “on the nose”, in Tom Dalzell and Terry Victor, editors, The New Partridge Dictionary of Slang and Unconventional English, volume 2 (J–Z), London, New York, N.Y.: Routledge, →ISBN, page 1384.
• “Nose” in [John Camden Hotten], The Slang Dictionary […], 5th edition, London: Chatto and Windus, 1874, page 238: “"on the nose," on the look-out.”.

Anagrams

• honestone