prima facie

1. 1.

   as it seems at first sight

   “a prima facie case of murder”

   Similarclear

1. 1.

   at first sight

Questions about prima facie

What does prima facie mean?

prima facie means "as it seems at first sight". That is the primary sense; the word has 2 in total, listed in full on this page.

Is prima facie a common word?

prima facie is banded "Uncommon" — turns up in careful writing rather than conversation. The band comes from how often the word appears in a large corpus of everyday English, not from an editor's impression.