as in aside
a departure from the subject under consideration
in the middle of her description of her dog's symptoms, she went off on a tangent about its cute behavior
Synonyms & Similar Words
Relevance
as in tangential
Related Words
Dissimilar Words
Example Sentences
Examples are automatically compiled from online sources to
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Recent Examples of tangent
Anatola Araba, ELLE, 1 Sep. 2022
An early tangent veers into naval warfare, with various forces fighting for crucial shipping lanes.
—Darren Franich, EW.com, 19 Aug. 2022
Shirley Li, The Atlantic, 18 July 2025
For nearly an hour, Trump rambled about multiple topics his administration has tackled so far, ranging from tariffs to transgender people in sports while veering into tangents about his previous legal battles and first administration.
—Lalee Ibssa, ABC News, 14 July 2025
See All Example Sentences for tangent
Noun
This imaginary friend guides him through the tangent universe, encourages him to commit a series of crimes, and ends up triggering a chain of supernatural events.
—Anatola Araba, ELLE, 1 Sep. 2022
An early tangent veers into naval warfare, with various forces fighting for crucial shipping lanes.
—Darren Franich, EW.com, 19 Aug. 2022
Adjective
Information, as a result, becomes abstracted into tangents.
—Shirley Li, The Atlantic, 18 July 2025
For nearly an hour, Trump rambled about multiple topics his administration has tackled so far, ranging from tariffs to transgender people in sports while veering into tangents about his previous legal battles and first administration.
—Lalee Ibssa, ABC News, 14 July 2025
See All Example Sentences for tangent
Recent Examples of Synonyms for tangent
Noun
-
Exemptions are better than abatements—Exemptions for a set period with specific set asides seem to create the most predictability for the developer.—
Roger Valdez,
Forbes.com,
7 Aug. 2025
-
Over the course of its nearly 30-year run, South Park has deployed toilet humor, ruthless political commentary, and profane asides to eviscerate wide swaths of people.—
Paula Mejía,
The Atlantic,
31 July 2025
Adjective
-
The music felt almost secondary to apocryphal stories tangential to the music.—
Daniel Fienberg,
HollywoodReporter,
22 July 2025
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Kaiser said if allowed to stand, the ruling will have the effect of making arson of property belonging to any entity receiving federal funding, regardless of how tangential the connection, a federal crime.—
Arkansas Online,
Arkansas Online,
21 July 2025
Noun
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These otherworldly digressions from the plot and their treatment of mortality elevate the family-friendly biopic from its more standard messaging of being yourself despite others’ opinions.—
Carlos Aguilar,
Variety,
15 Aug. 2025
-
That is why the film is not just telling a story in a totally straightforward way, but makes these kinds of little cinematic digressions.—
Georg Szalai,
HollywoodReporter,
6 Aug. 2025
Adjective
-
At much higher doses, peripheral mechanisms can take over, but in real-world clinical use, the brain’s contribution could be key.—
William A. Haseltine,
Forbes.com,
13 Aug. 2025
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There’s also less glare on a curved monitor while filling more of your peripheral vision.—
BestReviews,
Mercury News,
12 Aug. 2025
Adjective
-
Work requirements will make fraudulent enrollment, whether deliberate or incidental, even harder to sustain.—
Jeremy Nighohossian,
Boston Herald,
3 Aug. 2025
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But the two are easy to conflate and can have some incidental overlap, which can be politically useful.—
Kaitlyn Tiffany,
The Atlantic,
10 July 2025
Adjective
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Nearly half of teachers believe that the professional development courses offered or demanded by their schools are largely irrelevant.—
Brady Knox,
The Washington Examiner,
8 Aug. 2025
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The future of sales is about asking the questions that make your competitors' answers irrelevant.—
B.D. Dalton,
Forbes.com,
8 Aug. 2025
Cite this Entry
“Tangent.” Merriam-Webster.com Thesaurus, Merriam-Webster, https://www.merriam-webster.com/thesaurus/tangent. Accessed 19 Aug. 2025.
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