From Longman Dictionary of Contemporary Englishtangentialtan‧gen‧tial /tænˈdʒenʃəl/ adjective formalCONNECTED WITH tangential information, remarks etc are only related to a particular subject in an indirect waytangential to The matter you raise is rather tangential to this discussion. —tangentially adverb
Examples from the Corpus
tangential• Even the tangential characters are wittily drawn.• Mona, Seth and Barbara make up the main focus of the book, but even the tangential characters are wittily drawn.• On the left-hand sides are the well-known expressions for the radial and tangential components of acceleration.• When this is augmented by oddly tangential keyboard sounds it's an enjoyable little maelstrom to be caught up in.• The Cartesian coordinates which result from this transformation describe a space which is tangential to the curved space at the point selected.• These are male-dominated arenas; women have historically been tangential to them.• There are two reasons for giving them only the most tangential treatment here. 