as in irrelevant
having little to do with the matter at hand
Your point is tangential to the main objective of this meeting so please save it for later.
Related Words
Relevance
Dissimilar Words
Example Sentences
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Recent Examples of tangential
He’s also involved in some dodgy side hustles, which leads to a lot of peripheral gunplay and tangential, ha-ha–bang-bang set pieces that feel cherry-picked from Coen’s back catalog.
—
David Fear, Rolling Stone, 20 Aug. 2025
While two arrests may not seem like a good return for so many years of effort, former federal agents told Forbes that there were likely tangential investigations that benefitted from the undercover operation.
—Thomas Brewster, Forbes.com, 19 Aug. 2025
From her career beginnings alongside Ansel Elgort in Steven Spielberg’s West Side Story, through her recent starring role in Jamie Lloyd’s Evita, Zegler’s public narrative has been defined not by her (immense) talent but by various tangential squabbles.
—Jason P. Frank, Vulture, 28 July 2025
Significant policy changes that have a tangential or incidental budgetary impact are subject to 60-vote point-of-order objections.
—Alexander Bolton, The Hill, 28 June 2025
See All Example Sentences for tangential
David Fear, Rolling Stone, 20 Aug. 2025
While two arrests may not seem like a good return for so many years of effort, former federal agents told Forbes that there were likely tangential investigations that benefitted from the undercover operation.
—Thomas Brewster, Forbes.com, 19 Aug. 2025
From her career beginnings alongside Ansel Elgort in Steven Spielberg’s West Side Story, through her recent starring role in Jamie Lloyd’s Evita, Zegler’s public narrative has been defined not by her (immense) talent but by various tangential squabbles.
—Jason P. Frank, Vulture, 28 July 2025
Significant policy changes that have a tangential or incidental budgetary impact are subject to 60-vote point-of-order objections.
—Alexander Bolton, The Hill, 28 June 2025
See All Example Sentences for tangential
Recent Examples of Synonyms for tangential
Adjective
-
There is this constant projection from bad-faith actors, who find the truth irrelevant to their desires to rhetorically position the work that artists are doing—and even reality itself.—
Helen Molesworth,
Artforum,
1 Oct. 2025
-
My teaching skills were basically irrelevant.—
Joshua Rothman,
New Yorker,
30 Sep. 2025
Adjective
-
The slope, or steepness, of the tangent line measures how quickly the function is changing at that point.—
Solomon Adams,
WIRED,
23 Feb. 2025
-
By 1643, René Descartes had discovered a simple relationship between the curvatures of any four circles that are tangent to each other.—
Quanta Magazine,
Quanta Magazine,
10 Aug. 2023
Adjective
-
And, of course, vice versa, reinforcing the disparity for those in peripheral locations.—
Sarah Maokosy,
Fortune,
4 Oct. 2025
-
The presentation emphasized that these artists are not peripheral but foundational to American art history, a point Lampkins-Fielder was determined to make clear.—
Okla Jones,
Essence,
29 Sep. 2025
Cite this Entry
“Tangential.” Merriam-Webster.com Thesaurus, Merriam-Webster, https://www.merriam-webster.com/thesaurus/tangential. Accessed 8 Oct. 2025.
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