Words / T / Medicine

tangential

adjective/tænˈdʒɛnʃəl/

B2CEFR level
40/100Rarity: uncommon
TechnicalRegister

Relating to thought or speech that departs from the main subject and fails to return to it.

The mental state examination noted tangential speech that drifted further from the original question.

Similar: digressive

Topic: Clinical consultation in Medical English

Rarity runs from 0 (a word everyone knows) to 100 (almost never seen outside specialist or literary writing). Level is the word's real difficulty on the CEFR scale, from A1 to C2.

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More medicine words: Clinical consultation