Meaning & use
tangential
Only slightly connected to the main subject; digressing from the main topic.
See it in a sentence
The lawyer objected that the question was tangential to the case.
His tangential comment about the weather derailed the meeting for several minutes.
A note on using this word
Tangential comes from geometry, where a tangent line touches a curve at only one point without crossing into it.
Words with a similar meaning
unrelatedperipheraldigressive
Choose a synonym to suit the sentence. Meanings can overlap without being identical.
Words with an opposite meaning
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