Make Your Point > Archived Issues > TANGENTIAL
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Our word tangential belongs to the tangere family: to the group of words that trace back to the Latin tangere, meaning "to touch." That family includes words like tactile, tangible, intact, contaminate, and integrate.
"Tangent" comes from the Latin tangere, "to touch." In geometry, a tangent is a point where things touch, but only at that single point. The purple line below is a tangent. It touches the circle at just that one point.
Part of speech:
Pick the common, formal, slightly negative word "tangential" when you want to sound logical, even mathematical, as you complain about a loose or shaky connection.
"[The writers pay] loving attention to the personal quirks defining the most tangential characters."
Explain the meaning of "tangential" without saying "irrelevant" or "digressive."
In his blog Raptitude, David Cain wrote:
Try to spend 20 seconds or more on the game below. Don’t skip straight to the review—first, let your working memory empty out.
1.
The opposite of TANGENTIAL is
I hope you're enjoying Make Your Point. It's made with love. I'm Liesl Johnson, a reading and writing tutor on a mission to explore, illuminate, and celebrate words. |