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
Synonyms & Similar Words
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Example Sentences
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Recent Examples of tangents
Comprising a mix of anxiety, cerebral tangents, and a dash of absurdist whimsy, Nancherla’s first full-length special Hopeful Potato, directed by Eliza Skinner, premieres December 15.
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Matt Grobar, Deadline, 17 Oct. 2025
Like his film Bacurau, The Secret Agent bends back on its own genre, indulging in tangents and side characters and tonal shifts throughout.
—Vulture Staff, Vulture, 23 Sep. 2025
Matt Grobar, Deadline, 17 Oct. 2025
Like his film Bacurau, The Secret Agent bends back on its own genre, indulging in tangents and side characters and tonal shifts throughout.
—Vulture Staff, Vulture, 23 Sep. 2025
Recent Examples of Synonyms for tangents
Noun
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While After the Hunt is full of scathing dialogue, snarky asides, and buzzwords aplenty, the final conversation between Alma and Maggie may be its most damning indictment of systems of power.—
Barry Levitt,
Time,
17 Oct. 2025
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Such breezy asides suggest a movie that’s a little too eager to be liked.—
Ben Kenigsberg,
New York Times,
16 Oct. 2025
Noun
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But in the small areas of freedom McAvoy allows himself outside the main thrust of the familiar rags-to-riches-to-regret arc there are sharp little digressions and darker shadowy corners that suggest there’s more to the film, and to McAvoy as a filmmaker, than initially meets the eye.—
Jessica Kiang,
Variety,
4 Oct. 2025
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There's no explicit in-game reward for almost all of these random digressions, and your fellow cut-scene hikers will frequently explicitly warn you that there's no point in climbing some structure or another.—
ArsTechnica,
ArsTechnica,
23 Sep. 2025
Cite this Entry
“Tangents.” Merriam-Webster.com Thesaurus, Merriam-Webster, https://www.merriam-webster.com/thesaurus/tangents. Accessed 29 Oct. 2025.
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