What is the origin and exact meaning of the phrase “not seeing the forest for the trees”. I don’t hear the phrase too often in the part of the country where I live and none of my dictionaries has the phrase.
Thank you in advance to all who reply 
I’ve always taken it to mean You can’t see the forest, for all of the trees in the way.
The connotation is that of being so concerned with the details that you miss the big picture. You see the individual trees, but do not notice the fact that in aggregate they make up a forest.
You are not getting the big picture, because you are focusing too much on the details.
Johnny’s got it. You are standing so close you can’t see the forrest, because all these damn trees are in the way.
My understanding of the phrase is exactly as Colibri stated, by focusing on one tree you do not realize you are in a forest.
I normally hear this as ‘can’t see the wood for the trees’.
I think the means that whatever you are looking for (a physical thing, an answer to a question etc) is so obvious that you overlook it.
Probably because you have a pre-conceived notion that the ‘object’ will be hard to find.
When I was a kid and played hide and seek, my favourite hiding place was to stand in the middle of the playground tying my lace or chatiing to people etc. because the seeker would usually walk right past and not register me.
armakuni, that is so funny. True, but funny. I worked as a cop for a few years, and once got in the dog house of the chief (I wrecked a squad car). He punished me by making me ride a bicycle. It turned out that everyone ignores bicycles. Even in full uniform I could ride up next to the guy throwing bricks at a window and he did not take note that there was a cop next to him. Turned out I had the best arrest record on the department that two weeks!
“Actually, I was stealing wheelbarrows.”
This is something rather different from the proverb mentioned in the OP. (Actually have never heard it formulated as “Can’t see the wood for the trees,” and even if it were, I would think that in this phrasing “wood” would mean “forest” rather than wood as a substance.) This is the principle of “hide in plain sight,” which forms the crux of Edgar Allen Poe’s detective story “The Purloined Letter,” and G. K. Chesterton’s Father Brown mystery “The Invisible Man” (in which the murderer is “invisible” because he is disguised as a postman).
That’s strange, I have only heard ‘Can’t see the forest for the trees’ about twice in my life (including this thread). It kinda jars with me because it doesn’t trip off the tongue as well. I just assumed the Americans had changed it 
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I meant ‘wood’ as in ‘forest’ but to me it work the same if I was meaning ‘wood as a substance’
Like if you send a guy into the forest to get some wood and he comes back empty handed saying “There’s nothing but trees out there”.
I guess it’s about expecting your truth so much that you exclude the other truths even when they are staring you in the face, or something.
Where are you, the UK? The wording may well be different.
Whatever the case, I think the meaning you give is different from the usual one - the object can not be seen is not because it it obvious, but because its identity is obscured by concentrating on detail.
UK here, and “can’t see the wood for the trees” is the only version I know.
For me, it has always meant not being able to see the substance because of all the [objects made from that substance] in the way.
However, the US version indicates that my interpretation may be wrong - “wood” also meaning “small forest” over here.
Scotland.
But if you cannot see the forest for the trees you are still looking at ‘trees’ plural. So you are not focusing on detail there, you are seeing the forest.
The more I think about it, it should be wood (substance) and trees. Shifts in mental perception, coming at things from different angles of thought, and seeing things in a new light. That sort of thing.
We have the same phrase in German: “den Wald vor lauter Bäumen nicht sehen”
According to Grimm’s Dictionary the first cite in German is Musarion, Book II (1768) by C. M. Wieland
The relevant passage is approximately:
“Nonetheless - as visible as it was - none of this becomes apparent to the two wise [men] although they measure the beautiful [woman] with big eyes. Gentlemen of this kind are often blinded by to much light. They don’t see the forest for all the trees.”
(Except that it is in rhyming verse and sounds more like enlightenment )
There are several other cites by other well-known authors (Goethe, Brentano…) In fact the phrase is pretty common here.
Details. The point being that because you are perceiving them as individual objects, you are not seeing their totality.
This page has a rather extensive discussion which demonstrates that the "wood as a substance’’ interpretation is incorrect, in particular because the equivalent proverb exists in other languages in which the word used is not ambiguous:
etc.
The page also cites these sources which correspond to my interpretation:
The author of the page gives the earliest reference to the phrase that he was able to find as being John Heywood’s book of proverbs, originally published in 1546. As found in two reprints of this text, from 1874 and 1906, the proverb is as follows:
Wow, and here’s me thinking it meant something like the opposite of what it does mean. 10 Google pages in and there was only one guy thinking like me and he was soon put to rights.
Don’t fret over it. Lots of preconceived notions of many of us get busted from time to time. If it helps out, I did like the very obvious use of thought that you put into the explanation of your former belief.
My biggest problem concerns the echoing of ducks on a treadmill for the whole nine yards (which equals one, btw). :dubious:
This was a well-known proverb in English by 1546,
Sorry, Colibri. I should have noticed you posted this first.