germane
adjective
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“Wert thou a Leopard, thou wert Germane to the Lion.” So wrote William Shakespeare in his five-act tragedy Timon of Athens, using an old (and now-obsolete) sense of germane meaning “closely akin.” Germane comes to us from the Middle English word germain, meaning “having the same parents.” (An early noun sense of germane also referred specifically to children of the same parents.) Today, something said to be germane is figuratively “related” in that it is relevant or fitting to something else, as when music critic Amanda Petrusich wrote of an album by the Chicks: “‘Gaslighter’ is brasher and more pop-oriented than anything the band has done before. Part of this shift feels germane to our era—the idea of genre, as it applies to contemporary music, is growing less and less relevant—but it also feels like a final repudiation of country music, and of a community that mostly failed to support or to understand one of its biggest acts.”
Examples of germane in a Sentence
Stanley Kauffmann, New Republic, 3 Feb. 2003
Bork and his supporters argued that his "academic" writings and his speeches were not germane to whether he should be confirmed.
—Elizabeth Drew, New Yorker, 2 Nov. 1987
From time to time, engineers and scientists hold conferences … where they trot out ideas they have developed, frequently ideas germane to solving practical problems.
—Jane Jacobs, Cities and the Wealth of Nations, (1984) 1985
facts germane to the dispute
my personal opinion isn't germane to our discussion of the facts of the case
Kevin Freking, Twin Cities, 19 Sep. 2025
Wu proposed an amendment to table consideration of the maps until the Jeffrey Epstein files are released by U.S. Attorney General Pam Bondi, but Wu's amendment was dismissed as not germane to the matter at hand.
—Oren Oppenheim, ABC News, 21 Aug. 2025
The Trump administration is relying on a shaky legal theory that the president can act broadly to protect federal property and functions said Joseph Nunn, an attorney at the Brennan Center for Justice who specializes in legal issues germane to the U.S. military's domestic activities.
—Alex Horton and David Ovalle The Washington Post, Arkansas Online, 13 Aug. 2025
That’s a germane question now, because California lawmakers and the governor just killed a program that was supposed to help diversify jury pools.
—Denise Amos, San Diego Union-Tribune, 31 July 2025
See All Example Sentences for germane
Cite this Entry
“Germane.” Merriam-Webster.com Dictionary, Merriam-Webster, https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/germane. Accessed 6 Nov. 2025.
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germane
adjective
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