tangential

1. 1.

   of superficial relevance if any

   “a digressive allusion to the day of the week”

   “a tangential remark”

   Synonymsdigressive

   Similarirrelevant
2. 2.

   of or relating to or acting along or in the direction of a tangent

   “tangential forces”

Questions about tangential

What does tangential mean?

tangential means "of superficial relevance if any". That is the primary sense; the word has 2 in total, listed in full on this page.

How many syllables are in tangential?

tangential has 3 syllables: tan-gen-tial. The stress falls on "gen". In IPA it is /tænˈdʒɛnʃəl/.

What is another word for tangential?

Close synonyms include digressive. 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 tangential a common word?

tangential is banded "Rare" — specialist or archaic — most readers will not have met it. The band comes from how often the word appears in a large corpus of everyday English, not from an editor's impression.