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
The Los Angeles experience consists mostly of such tangential connections and brief grazes of luxury.
—
Joe Joyce, The Washington Examiner, 5 Sep. 2025
That may be why the Media Matters fight, which seems like just another front with a tangential player in the FTC's bigger battle, may end up mattering the most.
—Ashley Belanger, ArsTechnica, 22 Aug. 2025
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
See All Example Sentences for tangential
Joe Joyce, The Washington Examiner, 5 Sep. 2025
That may be why the Media Matters fight, which seems like just another front with a tangential player in the FTC's bigger battle, may end up mattering the most.
—Ashley Belanger, ArsTechnica, 22 Aug. 2025
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
See All Example Sentences for tangential
Recent Examples of Synonyms for tangential
Adjective
-
Each was played a stream of speech that contained relevant comments and other irrelevant information, all spoken in a flat tone.—
Jack Beresford,
MSNBC Newsweek,
21 Oct. 2025
-
Its cable properties are increasingly irrelevant in the market, and networks like Logo, MTV and TV Land have been starved of new content for years.—
Brian Steinberg,
Variety,
20 Oct. 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
-
Scanning and peripheral vision remain integral to his game.—
Jordan Campbell,
New York Times,
17 Oct. 2025
-
Scarring the outer retina can cause people to lose their peripheral vision, color vision and night vision.—
Liz Szabo,
Scientific American,
14 Oct. 2025
Cite this Entry
“Tangential.” Merriam-Webster.com Thesaurus, Merriam-Webster, https://www.merriam-webster.com/thesaurus/tangential. Accessed 26 Oct. 2025.
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