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
Synonyms & Similar Words
Antonyms & Near Antonyms
Example Sentences
Examples are automatically compiled from online sources to
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Recent Examples of tangent
Jason Lemon, MSNBC Newsweek, 24 May 2025
The tangent the scene takes disrupts our perception of this particular location as it’s been established throughout the prior 50 minutes or so.
—Josh Slater-Williams, IndieWire, 15 May 2025
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
See All Example Sentences for tangent
Noun
Critics, however, often take issue with unusual, and sometimes bizarre, tangents during public remarks.
—Jason Lemon, MSNBC Newsweek, 24 May 2025
The tangent the scene takes disrupts our perception of this particular location as it’s been established throughout the prior 50 minutes or so.
—Josh Slater-Williams, IndieWire, 15 May 2025
Adjective
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
See All Example Sentences for tangent
Recent Examples of Synonyms for tangent
Noun
-
But its event this year seemed tighter than usual, with fewer of the athletes that regularly participate going off on verbal tangents or taking up time for humorous asides.—
Brian Steinberg,
Variety,
13 May 2025
-
There were the laugh-free auditions, the under-the-breath asides, the sphinx-like questions to interviewees who had sat on the couch in his outer office at 30 Rock for hours, listening as assistants booked helicopters to the Hamptons.—
Susan Morrison,
airmail.news,
22 Feb. 2025
Adjective
-
At times, Pinho includes dry scenes where tangential characters address the camera with historical facts.—
Murtada Elfadl,
Variety,
28 May 2025
-
Baby Billy’s success or failure is tangential to the Gemstones at large, so the writing (and Goggins’s performance) can be as liberated as Billy’s ball sack.—
Scott Tobias,
Vulture,
28 Apr. 2025
Noun
-
All the digressions and discombobulations, and the need to flesh out so many angles of the Stacy/Aislin dynamic, impact the directness some of the play’s key messages about mortality, community and communication.—
Christopher Arnott,
Hartford Courant,
13 June 2025
-
The author also varies the texture of the book by inserting poems, quotations, dramatic dialogue, a veiled account of her unhappy days at boarding school, and a lengthy digression on the German mystic Friederike Hauffe, who claimed to be clairvoyant and to communicate with spirits.—
James Marcus,
New Yorker,
2 June 2025
Adjective
-
He’s been lucky so far, but even the peripheral stats still show a decent pitcher.—
Owen Poindexter,
New York Times,
13 June 2025
-
As a result, the team has fielded some calls about trading away a peripheral option.—
Peter Chawaga,
MSNBC Newsweek,
13 June 2025
Adjective
-
But the haphazard rollout of unprecedented global tariffs in April and the White House’s goal of reshaping the postwar order indicate that upheaval is not just incidental but a central policy objective.—
REBECCA LISSNER,
Foreign Affairs,
24 June 2025
-
The fact that Israel actually plunged the dagger into the deceased is incidental.—
Graeme Wood,
The Atlantic,
13 June 2025
Adjective
-
The most dangerous founders secretly fear becoming irrelevant in their own creation.—
Expert Panel®,
Forbes.com,
23 June 2025
-
The short movie for spring — whose title is being kept under wraps until the screening — is set on a ferry boat trip, its destination unknown and irrelevant, Magliano added.—
Martino Carrera,
Footwear News,
20 June 2025
Cite this Entry
“Tangent.” Merriam-Webster.com Thesaurus, Merriam-Webster, https://www.merriam-webster.com/thesaurus/tangent. Accessed 1 Jul. 2025.
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