Examples of “tangent” in a Sentence

noun A straight line that touches a curve at exactly one point without crossing it.

• Draw a tangent to the circle at that point.
• In geometry class, we learned that a tangent meets the circle at only one point.
• The teacher asked us to measure the angle between the tangent and the radius.

noun A sudden shift to a topic only loosely related to what was being discussed.

• He went off on a tangent about his holiday plans.
• Let's not go off on a tangent — back to the budget.
• The speaker kept going off on a tangent, and the audience lost track of the topic.