distant
UK/ˈdɪstənt/
distant adjective: far off (physically, logically or mentally).
Adjective
distant (comparative more distant, superlative most distant)
- 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
- Emotionally unresponsive or unwilling to express genuine feelings.
- Ever since our argument, she has been totally distant toward me.
- Synonyms:
- aloof, cold, cool, frosty, hankty, hard-to-get, offish, quiet, remote, standoffish
- 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.
Synonyms of distant
15 more synonymsFewer synonyms
Antonyms
Forms of distant
| Adjective | |
|---|---|
| comparative | more distant |
| superlative | most distant |
| alternative form (obsolete) | distaunt |
| alternative form (obsolete) | dystant |
| alternative form (obsolete) | dystaunt |
| Noun | |
| plural | distants |
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
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.
