tangent

Questions about tangent

What does tangent mean?

tangent means "a straight line or plane that touches a curve or curved surface at a point but does not intersect it at that point". That is the primary sense; the word has 2 in total, listed in full on this page.

How many syllables are in tangent?

tangent has 2 syllables: tan-gent. The stress falls on "tan". In IPA it is /ˈtændʒənt/.

What is another word for tangent?

Close synonyms include tan. Each sense on this page lists its own synonyms, because a word with several meanings rarely has one substitute that works for all of them.

Is tangent a common word?

tangent is banded "Uncommon" — turns up in careful writing rather than conversation. The band comes from how often the word appears in a large corpus of everyday English, not from an editor's impression.