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
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as in tangential
Related Words
Dissimilar Words
Example Sentences
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Recent Examples of tangent
Darren Franich, EW.com, 19 Aug. 2022
Austin’s former president then went on a tangent talking about Reese’s eggs, Cap’n Crunch and berries.
—Frank Pallotta, CNN, 17 Apr. 2022
Ethan Shanfeld, Variety, 16 Sep. 2025
This sounds like something out of the mouth of a Quentin Tarantino character on a brilliant, oddball tangent.
—Scott Stossel, The Atlantic, 9 Sep. 2025
See All Example Sentences for tangent
Noun
An early tangent veers into naval warfare, with various forces fighting for crucial shipping lanes.
—Darren Franich, EW.com, 19 Aug. 2022
Austin’s former president then went on a tangent talking about Reese’s eggs, Cap’n Crunch and berries.
—Frank Pallotta, CNN, 17 Apr. 2022
Adjective
An early tangent leads us on a 12-minute detour talking about Bob Dylan.
—Ethan Shanfeld, Variety, 16 Sep. 2025
This sounds like something out of the mouth of a Quentin Tarantino character on a brilliant, oddball tangent.
—Scott Stossel, The Atlantic, 9 Sep. 2025
See All Example Sentences for tangent
Recent Examples of Synonyms for tangent
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
Adjective
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Florida teachers are facing investigations for social media posts deemed insensitive after Charlie Kirk’s death — scrutiny that the state’s teachers union says targets even tangential or indirect comments.—
Miami Herald,
Miami Herald,
14 Oct. 2025
-
With astrometry, instead of measuring the radial motion of a star, astronomers measure its tangential motion on the sky as it is pulled in different directions by orbiting planets.—
Keith Cooper,
Space.com,
8 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
Adjective
-
His peripheral stats like WHIP and FIP were virtually identical to last year's, but sometimes, bad luck gets in the way.—
Jackson Roberts,
MSNBC Newsweek,
24 Oct. 2025
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How Tielemans overcame early toils is often used as a source of encouragement by new additions who seem peripheral at first.—
Jacob Tanswell,
New York Times,
23 Oct. 2025
Adjective
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And, those costs are not always incidental, particularly with pickups.—
Kathy Kristof,
San Diego Union-Tribune,
20 Oct. 2025
-
Gestures, colloquialisms, facial expressions, local cuisine, and the like are not incidental to a tongue but constitute it; sometimes, to capture a word or phrase, in writing or in an algorithm, is to stamp out its meaning.—
Matteo Wong,
The Atlantic,
16 Oct. 2025
Adjective
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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
Cite this Entry
“Tangent.” Merriam-Webster.com Thesaurus, Merriam-Webster, https://www.merriam-webster.com/thesaurus/tangent. Accessed 29 Oct. 2025.
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