Word.ws English Dictionary

distant

UK/ˈdɪstənt/

distant adjective: far off (physically, logically or mentally).

Adjective

distant (comparative more distant, superlative most distant)

  1. Far off (physically, logically or mentally).
    • We heard a distant rumbling but didn't pay any more attention to it. She was surprised to find that her fiancé was a distant relative of hers. His distant look showed that he was not listening to me.
    • Judge Short had gone to town, and Farrar was off for a three days' cruise up the lake. I was bitterly regretting I had not gone with him when the distant notes of a coach horn reached my ear, and I descried a four-in-hand winding its way up the inn road from the direction of Mohair.1897 December (indicated as 1898), Winston Churchill, chapter IV, in The Celebrity: An Episode, New York, N.Y.: The Macmillan Company; London: Macmillan & Co., Ltd., →OCLC
    Synonyms:
    faraway
  2. Emotionally unresponsive or unwilling to express genuine feelings.
    • Ever since our argument, she has been totally distant toward me.
  3. (not comparable) Imported into a cable television system from a different market (and thus possibly incurring a copyright royalty).
    • Any determination that a particular television signal is "distant" must, of course, be made with respect to its proximity to a specific local area, which we have termed the CATV community, […]1973, Cable Television, Rand Corporation
    • Finally, there will be those unusual situations where a signal is distant to part of a CATV system and local to the rest of it.1983, Gary L. Christensen, Cable Television in a New Era, page 128
    Antonyms:
    local

distant meaning in Hindi, Tamil, Marathi and Urdu

distant in Hindi

far off
दूर dūr, दूरस्थ dūrasth

distant in Tamil

தொலைவான, நெருக்க மில்லாத

distant in Marathi

far off
दूर dūr

distant in Urdu

far off
دور dūr
More languagesFewer languages
distant in Bengali
দূর dur
distant in Telugu
దవ్వు davvu, ఎడమ eḍama
distant in Malayalam
അകന്ന akanna
distant in Kannada
ಗೆಂಟು, ದೂರದ, ಅಂತರವುಳ್ಳ
distant in Gujarati
દૂર dūr
distant in Odia
ଦୂର dura
distant in Sanskrit
दूर dūra
distant in Assamese
আঁতৰ ãtor
distant in Arabic
بَعِيد baʕīd
distant in Persian
دور dur
distant in Vietnamese
xa xôi
distant in Myanmar
ဝေးကွာ we:kwa

Examples of distant in a sentence

  • Yes, he's a relation of mine, but only a distant one.
  • From across the valley came the resonant sound of a distant church bell.
  • Powerful telescopes look far back into the distant reaches of the Universe.

All 40 example sentences with distant

Synonyms of distant

15 more synonymsFewer synonyms

Antonyms

All synonyms and antonyms of distant

Forms of distant

Adjective
comparativemore distant
superlativemost distant
alternative form (obsolete)distaunt
alternative form (obsolete)dystant
alternative form (obsolete)dystaunt
Noun
pluraldistants

Origin of distant

Inherited from Middle English distaunt, from Old French distant, from Latin distāns.

Words formed from distant

Phrases with distant

Questions about distant

What does distant mean?
Distant means far off (physically, logically or mentally).
What is distant in Hindi?
Distant in Hindi is दूर (dūr), दूरस्थ (dūrasth). See Distant meaning in Hindi.
What part of speech is distant?
Distant is an adjective.
How do you pronounce distant?
Distant is pronounced /ˈdɪstənt/ (UK).

Words near distant in the dictionary

  1. distannoxanes
  2. distannylene
  3. distannylenes
  4. distannyne
  5. distannynes
  6. distant
  7. distant sequel
  8. distant sequels
  9. distant signal
  10. distant signals
  11. distant starlight problem

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: distant (page history and authors); distant (Tamil Wiktionary) (page history and authors); দূর (Bengali) (page history and authors); ఎడమ (Telugu) (page history and authors); distant (Kannada Wiktionary) (page history and authors); દૂર (Gujarati) (page history and authors); আঁতৰ (Assamese) (page history and authors). Text available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 license. Word.ws reformatted the entry and added links. Wiktionary data of 2026-09-02.

Last updated:

Pronunciation audio from Wikimedia Commons, each file under its own free license: en-us-distant.ogg.

Cite this entry: “distant.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/distant. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.