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Glite Dictionary
🗨️ Not closely related ⭕ Touching at one point
tangential

tangential

1 8.5
Touching a curve or surface at only one point without crossing it
  • adjective
  • /tænˈdʒɛnʃəl/
  • Specialized
translation icon : tangencial
  • The tangent line at point A touches the curve tangentially without intersecting it.
  • tangential force
  • tangential shear
  • tangential displacement

So that's one, it can move in the tangential direction, right?

Examples

  • The task includes essential rather than tangential ideas.

    Academic text (1994)

  • I don't agree at all that Dave's prose is 'tangential'; it's exactly on target.

    Blog text (9)

  • One can scarcely imagine a more tangential approach to secular changes in surface temperatures than that embodied by these workshops.

    Blog text (29)

  • Rather, it is a behavioral code that represents one of several possible tangential points between mutually informing axes of power and gender.

    Academic text (2006)

  • The car drove tangential to the curves of the road, gliding smoothly around corners.

  • As she traced the circle, her pencil moved tangential to its edge, barely grazing the surface.

Synonyms

peripheral
vstangential
27 6.5

At the outer edge of something, away from the centre

touches a curve or surface at only one point without crossing it

How Relevant

central
528 2.1
relevant
592 3.3
related
∞ 2.3
peripheral
16 6.5
tangential
  • Specialized
1 8.5
orthogonal
2 8.9

Surface Forms

tangential positive

Morphology

tangential = tangent (transparent) = tangent + ial

The adjective is a regular derivation from the noun 'tangent' meaning 'relating to a tangent' in mathematics/geometry.

Etymology

Tangential comes from the Latin root tangere 'to touch' and from the word tangent, a line that 'touches' a curve or circle at just one point. So tangential describes something that touches a curve or surface at a single point without crossing it.