I. ˈtanjənt, ˈtaan- adjective
Etymology: Latin tangent-, tangens, present participle of tangere to touch; akin to Greek tetagōn having seized, Old English thaccian to stroke, touch gently
1.
a. : touching at a single point
a straight line tangent to a curve
b.
(1) : having a common tangent line at a point — used of two curves in a plane, two space curves, or a surface and a space curve
(2) : having a common tangent plane at a point — used of two surfaces
2.
a. : diverging from an original purpose or course : erratic
much of his work is chaotic and distorted by tangent obsessions — Tennessee Williams
b. : contiguous : being in agreement
subject matter tangent to the country's growth in those years — M.F.Milton
II. noun
( -s )
Etymology: New Latin tangent-, tangens, from Latin, present participle of tangere to touch
1.
a. : tangent line
b. : the ordinate of any point on the terminal side of an angle divided by the nonzero abscissa of this point with the vertex coinciding with the origin of a plane rectangular coordinate system and the initial side of the angle coinciding with the positive x-axis — abbr. tan
2. : a course abruptly deviating from that previously pursued : digression , irrelevancy
avoid wandering off on tangents — J.F.Wharton
his critics … went off at a tangent — Saul Carson
3. : a small upright flat-ended metal pin at the inner end of a clavichord key that strikes the string to produce the musical tone and fixes the pitch by damping the string
4. : a piece of straight railroad track
III. noun
: a trigonometric function that is equal to the sine divided by the cosine for all real numbers θ for which the cosine is not equal to zero and is exactly equal to the tangent of an angle of measure θ in radians