tangent

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tangent

tan θ= (Academy Artworks)

adj.

1. Making contact at a single point or along a line; touching but not intersecting.
2. Irrelevant.

n.

1. A line, curve, or surface meeting another line, curve, or surface at a common point and sharing a common tangent line or tangent plane at that point.
2. (Abbr. tan) Mathematics. The trigonometric function of an acute angle in a right triangle that is the ratio of the length of the side opposite the angle to the length of the side adjacent to the angle.
3. A sudden digression or change of course: went off on a tangent during the courtroom argument.
4. Music. An upright pin in a keyboard instrument, especially in a clavichord, that rises to sound a string when a key is depressed and stops the string at a preset length to set the pitch.

[Latin (līnea) tangēns, tangent-, touching (line), present participle of tangere, to touch.]

A term describing a relationship of two figures (usually of the same dimension) in the neighborhood of a common point. The figures are tangent at a point P if they touch at P but do not intersect in a sufficiently small neighborhood of P. To be more precise, if P denotes a point of a curve C (see illustration), a line L is a tangent to C at P provided L is the limit of lines joining P to a variable point Q of C, as Q approaches P along C (that is, for Q sufficiently close to P, the line PQ is arbitrarily close to L).

Line L tangent to curve C at P.

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noun

An instance of digressing: aside, deviation, digression, divagation, divergence, divergency, excursion, excursus, irrelevancy, parenthesis. See approach/retreat.

Of lines, curves, and surfaces: meeting at a single point and having, at that point, the same direction.

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A line that touches a curve at a single point but does not cross the curve. The tangent of a circle at any point is at right angles to the radius of the circle at that point.

IN BRIEF: Diverging from an original purpose or course; or meeting a curve or surface in a single point if a sufficiently small interval is considered.

The author took a tangent from her prepared reading.

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Dansk (Danish)
n. - tangent, tangens
adj. - tangent-, tangerende, berørende

idioms:

• at a tangent    følge en (tanke)bane

Nederlands (Dutch)
raaklijn, rakend aan

Français (French)
n. - tangente
adj. - tangent

idioms:

• at a tangent    dévier, faire une digression

Deutsch (German)
n. - Tangens, Tangente
adj. - (sich) berührend

idioms:

• at a tangent    mit plötzlich geändertem Kurs, weit abgekommen

Ελληνική (Greek)
n. - (μαθημ.) εφαπτομένη (γωνίας)
adj. - εφαπτόμενος

idioms:

• at a tangent    για διαφορετικό θέμα

Italiano (Italian)
tangente

idioms:

• at a tangent    per la tangente

Português (Portuguese)
n. - tangente (f), tangente (f) trigonométrica (Mat.)
adj. - tangente

idioms:

• at a tangent    sair pela tangente, tangencial

Русский (Russian)
(мат.) тангент, касательная

idioms:

• at a tangent    отклонение от темы

Español (Spanish)
n. - tangente
adj. - tangente

idioms:

• at a tangent    salirse por la tangente

Svenska (Swedish)
n. - tangent (geom. matem.)
adj. - tangerande, tangerings-, berörings-

中文（简体）(Chinese (Simplified))
切线, 正切, 接触的, 相切的, 切线的

idioms:

• at a tangent    离题, 偏离原来途径

中文（繁體）(Chinese (Traditional))
n. - 切線, 正切
adj. - 接觸的, 相切的, 切線的

idioms:

• at a tangent    離題, 偏離原來途徑

한국어 (Korean)
n. - 접선, 탄젠트, 직선구간
adj. - ~에 접한

idioms:

• at a tangent    갑자기 옆길로 새다, (방침을) 느닷없이 바꾸다

日本語 (Japanese)
n. - 接線, 正接, 脱線
adj. - 接する, 接線の

idioms:

• at a tangent    急転換する

العربيه (Arabic)
‏(الاسم) ظل ألزاويه (صفه) خارج ألزاويه, مماس,‏

עברית (Hebrew)
n. - ‮משיק - קו הנוגע בקו אחר בנקודה אחת, טנגנס - היחס בין הניצב שמול הזווית לניצב שליד הזווית במשולש ישר-זווית‬
adj. - ‮נוגע, של משיק‬

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adidas tangent	ovation tangent series t 357 black