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.
Synonyms & Similar Words
Relevance
Antonyms & Near Antonyms
Example Sentences
Examples are automatically compiled from online sources to
show current usage.
Read More
Opinions expressed in the examples do not represent those of Merriam-Webster or its editors.
Send us feedback.
Recent Examples of tangential
Even if an idea feels tangential or trivial, consider it.
—
Jerry Weissman, Forbes, 22 Nov. 2024
His meandering public speeches have, in recent months, grown longer, more tangential, and darker in tone.
—Tribune News Service, Sun Sentinel, 23 Oct. 2024
The arrest of an erstwhile right-wing dictator dramatically narrows the options for Venezuela’s supposedly socialist revolutionaries, underlining, once more, how tangential ideology is to understanding the crisis.
—Moisés Naím, Foreign Affairs, 27 Jan. 2020
Not all of the figures are directly connected to Handel, and at times King’s deep background verges on the tangential.
—Jan Swafford, The Atlantic, 29 Oct. 2024
See all Example Sentences for tangential 
Jerry Weissman, Forbes, 22 Nov. 2024
His meandering public speeches have, in recent months, grown longer, more tangential, and darker in tone.
—Tribune News Service, Sun Sentinel, 23 Oct. 2024
The arrest of an erstwhile right-wing dictator dramatically narrows the options for Venezuela’s supposedly socialist revolutionaries, underlining, once more, how tangential ideology is to understanding the crisis.
—Moisés Naím, Foreign Affairs, 27 Jan. 2020
Not all of the figures are directly connected to Handel, and at times King’s deep background verges on the tangential.
—Jan Swafford, The Atlantic, 29 Oct. 2024
See all Example Sentences for tangential
Recent Examples of Synonyms for tangential
Adjective
-
Utilitarianism has died a rough death in the content mines, because views equal money, and if the pursuit of views is unchecked by ethics, then other people’s privacy becomes irrelevant.—
Kelsey McKinney,
Rolling Stone,
8 Feb. 2025
-
In the end, all the pre-festival chatter is pretty irrelevant, mind.—
Max Goldbart,
Deadline,
7 Feb. 2025
Adjective
-
The slope, or steepness, of the tangent line measures how quickly the function is changing at that point.—
Solomon Adams,
Quanta Magazine,
23 Jan. 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
-
Waldock said the helicopter pilots, with their night vision goggles interfering with their peripheral vision, may have wrongly focused on a plane that took off just before the collision.—
Gary Fields,
Los Angeles Times,
15 Feb. 2025
-
The worms migrate through the blood or along peripheral nerves to get to the central nervous system.—
Ars Technica,
Ars Technica,
13 Feb. 2025
Thesaurus Entries Near tangential
Cite this Entry
“Tangential.” Merriam-Webster.com Thesaurus, Merriam-Webster, https://www.merriam-webster.com/thesaurus/tangential. Accessed 21 Feb. 2025.
Copy CitationLove words? Need even more definitions?
Merriam-Webster unabridged
Share