tangent
/ˈtæn.d͡ʒənt/
tangent noun: a straight line touching a curve at a single point without crossing it there.
Noun
tangent (plural tangents)
- A straight line touching a curve at a single point without crossing it there.
- One feature of the body, which is constructed of pressed-steel members, is the contour of the sides. They are in the form of a continuous radius from the bottom side to the cant rail, and to enable flat glass windows to be fitted the side panels are pressed around the window opening, forming a...1951 May, “British Railways Standard Coaches”, in Railway Magazine, page 327
- Synonyms:
- tangent line
- A function of an angle that gives the ratio of the sine to the cosine, in either the real or complex numbers. Symbols: tan, tg.
- A course suddenly and unexpectedly divergent from one which was previously being followed (especially one embarked on before reaching the end of the previous course).
- A new topic of discussion unrelated to the one which came before it, arrived at due to a single (peripheral or trivial) point in common with it.
- I believe we went off onto a tangent when we started talking about monkeys on unicycles at his retirement party.
- “Uncle Barnaby was always father and mother to me,” Benson broke in; then after a pause his mind flew off at a tangent. “Is old Hannah all right—in the will, I mean?”1928, Lawrence R. Bourne, chapter 1, in Well Tackled!
- A new topic of discussion unrelated to the one which came before it, arrived at due to a single (peripheral or trivial) point in common with it.
- A visual interaction between two or more lines or edges that creates a perceived relationship between them, often in a way that the artist did not intend.
- A small metal blade in a clavichord that strikes the strings to produce sound.
Adjective
tangent (not comparable)
- Touching a curve at a single point but not crossing it at that point.
- Of a topic, only loosely related to a main topic.
- Synonyms:
- tangential
- Straight; not horizontally curved.
- The collision occurred on a two-mile stretch of tangent track.
Verb
tangent (third-person singular simple present tangents, present participle tangenting, simple past and past participle tangented)
- Synonym of fly off at a tangent (“to digress from a topic”).
- OK. Did that have anything to do with what I was saying? I just wanna know if you're tangenting or making an oblique connection I'm missing.1999 August 12, Robin Lee Powell, “Are WOMEN the SUPERIOR GENDER?”, in soc.sexuality.general (Usenet)
- I apoligise^([sic]) if anyone found these back-references more helpful than the answers that I gave -- I tried to cover all the salient points but -- well... "everything is deeply intermingled" and it's hard to know where to stop tangenting.2001 November 16, Helpful GM, “CL: you gain experience???”, in comp.sys.mac.games.adventure (Usenet)
- Synonyms:
- fly off at a tangent
tangent meaning in Hindi, Tamil, Marathi and Urdu
tangent in Hindi
- in geometry
- स्पर्शरेखा sparśarekhā
tangent in Tamil
- தாஞ்சன், தொடுகோடு, தொடலி, சந்தி, சந்திக்கோடு, மூலை
tangent in Marathi
- स्पर्शिका
tangent in Urdu
- مماسی
More languagesFewer languages
- tangent in Bengali
- ট্যানজেন্ট
- tangent in Telugu
- తిర్యగ్రేఖ tiryagrēkha
- tangent in Malayalam
- തൊടുവര toṭuvara
- tangent in Kannada
- ಸ್ಪರ್ಶರೇಖೆ, ಮುಟ್ಟುವ, ಮುಟ್ಟುವ ಗೆರೆ
- tangent in Punjabi
- ਟੈਨਜੈਂਟ, ਟੈਂਜੈਂਟ
- tangent in Gujarati
- સ્પર્શજ્યા sparśajyā
- tangent in Nepali
- ट्यानजेन्ट
- tangent in Tagalog
- tanway, dikit
- tangent in Arabic
- ظِلّ الزَّاوِيَة ẓill az-zāwiya, مُمَاسّ mumāss
- tangent in Persian
- تانژانت tānžānt, ظل zel, مماس momâss
- tangent in Thai
- แทนเจนต์, เส้นสัมผัส
- tangent in Vietnamese
- tang, tiếp tuyến
- tangent in Myanmar
- တန်းဂျင့် tan:gyang.
Examples of tangent in a sentence
- The normal vector and tangent vector at a given point are orthogonal.
- A hyperosculating point is one where the tangent space meets with order higher than normal.
- The harmonic polar line of an inflection point of a cubic curve is the component of the polar conic other than the tangent line.
Synonyms of tangent
Forms of tangent
| Noun | |
|---|---|
| plural | tangents |
| Verb | |
| third-person singular present | tangents |
| present participle | tangenting |
| past participle | tangented |
| past | tangented |
Origin of tangent
Borrowed from Latin tangentem, the accusative of tangēns (“touching”) (in the phrase līnea tangēns (“a touching line”)), the present participle of the verb tangō (“touch”, verb), from Proto-Italic *tangō, from Proto-Indo-European *teh₂g- (“to touch”). Cognate with Old English þaccian (“to touch lightly, pat, stroke”). More at thack, thwack.
Words formed from tangent
- antitangent
- arctangent
- bitangent
- cotangent
- fly off at a tangent
- go off at a tangent
- go off on a tangent
- hyperbolic tangent
- inflectional tangent
- inverse tangent
- semitangent
- subtangent
- tangental
- tangentality
- tangentally
- tangent bundle
- tangential
- tangentiality
- tangentially
- tangentoid
- tangentoidal
- tangent plane
- tangent space
- tritangent
- tangently
Phrases with tangent
- tangent line
- tangent lines
- tangent planes
- tangent spaces
- tangent bundles
- flew off at a tangent
- goes off at a tangent
- goes off on a tangent
- gone off at a tangent
- gone off on a tangent
- went off at a tangent
- went off on a tangent
5 more phrasesFewer phrases
Words that rhyme with tangent
Questions about tangent
- What does tangent mean?
- Tangent means a straight line touching a curve at a single point without crossing it there.
- What is tangent in Hindi?
- Tangent in Hindi is स्पर्शरेखा (sparśarekhā). See Tangent meaning in Hindi.
- What part of speech is tangent?
- Tangent can be a noun, an adjective or a verb.
- How do you pronounce tangent?
- Tangent is pronounced /ˈtæn.d͡ʒənt/.
- What is the plural of tangent?
- The plural of tangent is tangents.
Words near tangent in the dictionary
Source and license
Adapted from Wiktionary: tangent (page history and authors); tangent (Tamil Wiktionary) (page history and authors); tangent (Marathi, IndicTrans2 machine translation) (model and license); tangent (Urdu Wiktionary) (page history and authors); tangent (Bengali, IndicTrans2 machine translation) (model and license); തൊടുവര (Malayalam) (page history and authors); tangent (Kannada Wiktionary) (page history and authors); tangent (Punjabi, IndicTrans2 machine translation) (model and license); સ્પર્શજ્યા (Gujarati) (page history and authors); tangent (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.
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Pronunciation audio from Wikimedia Commons, each file under its own free license: LL-Q1860 (eng)-Vealhurl-tangent.wav.
Cite this entry: “tangent.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/tangent. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.