1 (geometry) a straight line that touches the outside of a curve but does not cross it
2 (abbreviation tan) (mathematics) the RATIO of the length of the side opposite an angle in a RIGHT-ANGLED triangle to the length of the side next to it
compareCOSINE, SINE
IDIOMS
fly / go off at a tangent (BrE) (AmE go off on a tangent) (informal) to suddenly start saying or doing sth that does not seem to be connected to what has gone before:
He never sticks to the point but keeps going off at a tangent.
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About this entry
This is a English–English dictionary entry.
Sourced from Main Dictionary in Lughet's collection.
This word also appears under other sources in Lughet's collection — see the list below.
This entry for tangent is sourced from Main Dictionary, one of the dictionaries and corpora merged into Lughet.
Is tangent a noun, verb, or something else?
In this entry, tangent is tagged as noun.
Does tangent appear elsewhere on Lughet?
Yes — tangent appears under other sources or language pairs in Lughet's collection. See the list below.
What is Lughet?
Lughet is a free trilingual dictionary covering nearly five million entries across Uyghur, Chinese, and English, drawn from more than ten source dictionaries and corpora.
