adjacent

adjective

ad·​ja·​cent ə-ˈjā-sᵊnt 

1

a

: having a common endpoint or border

adjacent lots

adjacent walls

the property adjacent to ours

adjacent sides of a triangle

b

: not distant : nearby

the city and adjacent suburbs

The arid conditions in California's Death Valley can be partially attributed to the adjacent mountains …

—Frederick K. Lutgens et al.

c

: immediately preceding or following with nothing similar intervening

an adjacent paragraph

… a would-be bank robber who mistook the entrance to an adjacent store for his objective.

—William Murray

2

of two angles : having the vertex and one side in common

adjacently adverb

Synonyms of adjacent

• adjoining
• neighboring
• closest
• bordering

Choose the Right Synonym for adjacent

adjacent, adjoining, contiguous, juxtaposed mean being in close proximity.

adjacent may or may not imply contact but always implies absence of anything of the same kind in between.

a house with an adjacent garage

adjoining definitely implies meeting and touching at some point or line.

had adjoining rooms at the hotel

contiguous implies having contact on all or most of one side.

offices in all 48 contiguous states

juxtaposed means placed side by side especially so as to permit comparison and contrast.

a skyscraper juxtaposed to a church

Examples of adjacent in a Sentence

The Harrimans owned two large adjacent houses on N Street, one for themselves and one for Averell Harriman's pictures. —Larry McMurtry, New York Times Review of Books, 23 Oct. 2003

Hearing unexpected chords was linked to magnetic activity in a left-brain region known as Broca's area and in adjacent right-brain tissue. —Bruce Bower, Science News, 5 May 2001

The hallways, especially those adjacent to the satellite phone, were crowded with journalists, avid to cover the Taliban takeover … —Michael Ignatieff, New Yorker, 24 Mar. 1997

Digging further in that spot and five adjacent areas, they retrieved 19 skulls, five eggs, over 150 jaws and hundreds of teeth, limbs and bone bits. —Natalie Angier, Time, 8 Oct. 1984

their house is adjacent to a wooded park

Recent Examples on the Web

There’s a park by that name in the community of Fawnskin adjacent to Big Bear Lake. — Assistant Editor, Los Angeles Times, 20 July 2026

Barrett is codirecting an excavation project at Pompeii that explores a larger elite house and an adjacent smaller dwelling to understand how the relationships between the people in both households changed over time. — Ashley Strickland, CNN Money, 20 July 2026

The capri-adjacent shorts were cut in midweight washed viscose with a textured handfeel and luminous sheen, and are finished with side cargo pockets and dual back pockets. — Karla Rodriguez, Footwear News, 20 July 2026

Notably, Old Petty plays alongside the 400-year-old Castle Stuart and adjacent to the Old Petty Church, providing players with unique views of its own. — Zach Schenfisch, Forbes.com, 20 July 2026

Word History

Etymology

Middle English, borrowed from Anglo-French agisaunt, adjesant, borrowed from Latin adjacent-, adjacens, present participle of adjacēre "to lie near, border on," from ad- ad- + jacēre "to lie," stative derivative from the base of jacere "to throw" — more at jet entry 3

First Known Use

15th century, in the meaning defined at sense 1b

Rhymes for adjacent

• complacent
• complaisant
• subjacent
• nascent

Kids Definition

adjacent

adjective

ad·​ja·​cent ə-ˈjās-ᵊnt 

1

: lying next or near : having a border or point in common

a field adjacent to the road

2

: having a vertex or a vertex and side in common

adjacent angles

adjacent sides of a rectangle

adjacently adverb