indirect
/ˌɪn.daɪˈɹɛkt/US/ˌɪn.dɪˈɹɛkt/
indirect adjective: not direct.
Adjective
indirect (comparative more indirect, superlative most indirect)
- Not direct
- While not mentioning any of their competitors by name, the CEO made some indirect statements that they were acting immorally.
- Se asked him some indirect questions to ascertain whether he was single.
- Synonyms:
- circuitous
- Not of obvious or immediate cause, but as a secondary result.
- The direct result of socialising every day in the bars may be happiness and meeting new people, but the indirect results could be addiction, or even poverty.
- Synonyms:
- circuitous
- Not focused straight at the target or subject; whose true aim appears secondary or obscure.
- Synonyms:
- circuitous
- Not involving the quickest, shortest, or most convenient path; oblique.
- In an effort to beat the traffic jams, they opted to take an indirect route to their destination.
- Synonyms:
- circuitous
- Employing argument by contradiction; making use the law of the excluded middle; arguing via the contrapositive.
- Synonyms:
- circuitous
- Figuratively
- Not straightforward, fair, or honest; corrupt.
- Did you, by indirect, and forced courſes / Subdue, and poyſon this tong Maides affections? / Or came it by requeſt, and ſuch faire queſtion / As ſoule, to ſoule affordeth?c. 1603–1604 (date written), William Shakespeare, “The Tragedie of Othello, the Moore of Venice”, in Mr. William Shakespeares Comedies, Histories, & Tragedies […] (First Folio), London: […] Isaac...
- Not straightforward, fair, or honest; corrupt.
Noun
indirect (plural indirects)
- An indirect cost.
- In the case of a piece of equipment such as a pump, the supplier's costs may be broken down into the directs of labour, material, and component costs on the one hand, and the indirects of customized engineering, sales, factory overheads, and order management costs on the other.2002, Peter Watermeyer, Handbook for Process Plant Project Engineers
- Gradually analytical thinking was taking a greater awareness of the importance it took for all the investigation system of the possible identification or traceability of fixed costs and, in general, of the indirects of other times.2010, Anna M. Gil-Lafuente and José M. Merigó (editos), Computational Intelligence in Business and Economics
- An indirect radiator.
- Indirect radiators are seldom installed except for rooms on the first or second floors; and in the former case the duct, D, is very short, and in the latter it is usually from 12 to 16 feet long. It should be stated in this connection that indirects of large size should be spread out as much as...1902, William S. Monroe, “Chapter 4”, in Steam Heating and Ventilation
Verb
indirect (third-person singular simple present indirects, present participle indirecting, simple past and past participle indirected)
- To access by means of indirection; to dereference.
- The X operations access the data fields by indirecting through the _rep pointer.1997, Cay S. Horstmann, Practical Object-Oriented Development in C++ and Java, page 385
- These correspond to an indirected parallel write and an indirected parallel read operation respectively.2012, Geerd-R. Hoffmann, Dimitris K. Maretis, The Dawn of Massively Parallel Processing in Meteorology
indirect meaning in Hindi, Tamil, Marathi and Urdu
indirect in Hindi
- indirect
- अप्रत्यक्ष apratyakṣ
indirect in Tamil
- நேராக அமையாத, மறை முகமான, மறைமுக, நேரல்லாத, உடன் அல்லாமல், நேர்வழியில்லா
indirect in Marathi
- अप्रत्यक्ष
indirect in Urdu
- بالواسطہ, چکر کا, کج, خم دار, منحرف, پھیر کا
More languagesFewer languages
- indirect in Bengali
- অপ্রত্যক্ষ, তির্যক্, ঘুরা, ঘুরান
- indirect in Telugu
- పరోక్ష
- indirect in Malayalam
- നേരിട്ടല്ലാത്ത, പരോക്ഷ, വ്യംഗ്യ, അപ്രത്യക്ഷ
- indirect in Kannada
- ನೇರವಲ್ಲದ, ಸುತ್ತು ಬಳಸುವ
- indirect in Punjabi
- ਅਪ੍ਰਤੱਖ
- indirect in Gujarati
- પરોક્ષ, અપ્રત્યક્ષ
- indirect in Odia
- ପରୋକ୍ଷ
- indirect in Sanskrit
- लक्ष्य lakṣya
- indirect in Nepali
- अप्रत्यक्ष
Examples of indirect in a sentence
- In this dilemma, indirect communications provide a useful compromise.1974, Thomas S. Szasz, M.D., chapter 8, in The Myth of Mental Illness, →ISBN, pages 139–140:
- Indirect radiators are seldom installed except for rooms on the first or second floors; and in the former case the duct, D, is very short, and in the latter it is usually from 12 to 16 feet long.1902, William S. Monroe, “Chapter 4”, in Steam Heating and Ventilation:
Synonyms of indirect
Antonyms
Forms of indirect
| Adjective | |
|---|---|
| comparative | more indirect |
| superlative | most indirect |
| Noun | |
| plural | indirects |
| Verb | |
| third-person singular present | indirects |
| present participle | indirecting |
| past participle | indirected |
| past | indirected |
Origin of indirect
From Middle French indirect, from Late Latin indirectus (“not direct”).
Words formed from indirect
- free indirect discourse
- free indirect style
- indirect anagram
- indirect cost
- indirect democracy
- indirect discourse
- indirect dye
- indirect election
- indirect fire
- indirect free kick
- indirectivity
- indirect kiss
- indirectly
- indirect maternal death
- indirectness
- indirect object
- indirect predation
- indirect procurement
- indirect question
- indirect quotation
- indirect realism
- indirect red card
- indirect report
- indirect speech
- indirect tax
- indirect transitive
Phrases with indirect
- indirect costs
- indirect taxes
- indirect kisses
- indirect objects
- indirect reports
- indirect anagrams
- indirect elections
- indirect questions
- indirect red cards
- indirect free kicks
- indirect quotations
- free indirect speech
1 more phrasesFewer phrases
Words that rhyme with indirect
48 more rhymesFewer rhymes
- deflect
- dissect
- expect
- redirect
- suspect
- correct
- defect
- disconnect
- infect
- inflect
- neglect
- resurrect
- unchecked
- abject
- bisect
- deject
- deselect
- genuflect
- incorrect
- inspect
- interject
- introspect
- object
- sect
- wrecked
- conject
- convect
- decked
- detect
- elect
- intersect
- necked
- perfect
- prospect
- protect
- recollect
- reconnect
- select
- subject
- trisect
- bandreject
- cathect
- cobra effect
- counterobject
- despect
- disinfect
- disject
- disrespect
Questions about indirect
- What does indirect mean?
- Indirect means not direct.
- What is indirect in Hindi?
- Indirect in Hindi is अप्रत्यक्ष (apratyakṣ). See Indirect meaning in Hindi.
- How do you use indirect in a sentence?
- In this dilemma, indirect communications provide a useful compromise.
- What part of speech is indirect?
- Indirect can be an adjective, a noun or a verb.
- How do you pronounce indirect?
- Indirect is pronounced /ˌɪn.daɪˈɹɛkt/ (UK).
Words near indirect in the dictionary
Source and license
Adapted from Wiktionary: indirect (page history and authors); अप्रत्यक्ष (Hindi) (page history and authors); indirect (Tamil Wiktionary) (page history and authors); indirect (Marathi, IndicTrans2 machine translation) (model and license); indirect (Urdu Wiktionary) (page history and authors); indirect (Bengali Wiktionary) (page history and authors); indirect (Telugu, IndicTrans2 machine translation) (model and license); indirect (Olam, E.K. Kurup corpus) (dataset and license); indirect (Kannada Wiktionary) (page history and authors); indirect (Punjabi, IndicTrans2 machine translation) (model and license); indirect (Gujarati, IndicTrans2 machine translation) (model and license); indirect (Odia, IndicTrans2 machine translation) (model and license); लक्ष्य (Sanskrit) (page history and authors); indirect (Nepali, IndicTrans2 machine translation) (model and license). 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:
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Cite this entry: “indirect.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/indirect. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.