as in asides
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
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Recent Examples of tangents
The Story Behind Gomez’s AirDrop Name In one of the episode’s more amusing tangents, Gomez shared the story behind her iPhone’s AirDrop name.
—
Ryan Brennan, Miami Herald, 5 Mar. 2026
At this point, the joke veers into tangents.
—Kathryn Vanarendonk, Vulture, 26 Feb. 2026
But Streisand apparently couldn’t help herself, going off on some tangents in her post that left some respondents amused but others thinking that the entertainment legend was living up to her reputation for being self-obsessed.
—Martha Ross, Mercury News, 26 Feb. 2026
Brown kept getting sidetracked with tangents and non sequiturs, on topics both momentous and random.
—Mark Leibovich, The Atlantic, 25 Feb. 2026
But rather than let meta references guide the plot, the half-hour sitcom takes off on wild tangents that are easy to get lost in, even when that’s not the main intention.
—Ben Travers, IndieWire, 20 Feb. 2026
The conversation is lively, with people often chatting over each other and going on tangents.
—Jourdain Searles, HollywoodReporter, 3 Feb. 2026
All in all, the show tackles a thoughtful premise — even two people speaking the same linguistic language will need their thoughts translated — and almost got it right but took a couple of tangents after the halfway mark.
—Hannah Abraham, Forbes.com, 29 Jan. 2026
But it was edited several times for length, to avoid tangents and the repetitiveness of partisan attacks.
—David Bauder, Fortune, 4 Nov. 2025
Ryan Brennan, Miami Herald, 5 Mar. 2026
At this point, the joke veers into tangents.
—Kathryn Vanarendonk, Vulture, 26 Feb. 2026
But Streisand apparently couldn’t help herself, going off on some tangents in her post that left some respondents amused but others thinking that the entertainment legend was living up to her reputation for being self-obsessed.
—Martha Ross, Mercury News, 26 Feb. 2026
Brown kept getting sidetracked with tangents and non sequiturs, on topics both momentous and random.
—Mark Leibovich, The Atlantic, 25 Feb. 2026
But rather than let meta references guide the plot, the half-hour sitcom takes off on wild tangents that are easy to get lost in, even when that’s not the main intention.
—Ben Travers, IndieWire, 20 Feb. 2026
The conversation is lively, with people often chatting over each other and going on tangents.
—Jourdain Searles, HollywoodReporter, 3 Feb. 2026
All in all, the show tackles a thoughtful premise — even two people speaking the same linguistic language will need their thoughts translated — and almost got it right but took a couple of tangents after the halfway mark.
—Hannah Abraham, Forbes.com, 29 Jan. 2026
But it was edited several times for length, to avoid tangents and the repetitiveness of partisan attacks.
—David Bauder, Fortune, 4 Nov. 2025
Recent Examples of Synonyms for tangents
Noun
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With not a lot of airtime to transition her protagonist from reasonable to out of touch with reality, Jonas relegated much of her character’s contemplative qualities to the asides and exaggerated her more base characteristics by adding in some reckless behavior.—
Elaina Patton,
IndieWire,
6 Mar. 2026
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Once Ida is revived, Buckley is rife with tics and guttural asides, switching between rat-a-tat mobster slang and Shelley’s flowery English prose like some postmodern literary Gollum.—
David Sims,
The Atlantic,
6 Mar. 2026
Noun
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There are no needless digressions, and their architecture is as robust and tightly engineered as their characters are fully fleshed.—
Emma Madden,
Los Angeles Times,
2 Mar. 2026
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Her erudite digressions and granular readings add up to a kind of literary procedural.—
Judith Shulevitz,
The Atlantic,
17 Feb. 2026
Cite this Entry
“Tangents.” Merriam-Webster.com Thesaurus, Merriam-Webster, https://www.merriam-webster.com/thesaurus/tangents. Accessed 12 Mar. 2026.
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