tangent

digression

Nouveau sujet qui éloigne une conversation de son thème principal.

En anglais simple : A new subject that takes a conversation away from its main subject.

• Sorry, I went off on a tangent.
• Her question sent the discussion off on a tangent.
• The speaker's tangents made the lecture hard to follow.

Comment l'utiliser : go off on a tangent (He went off on a tangent about his school days.)

Synonymes : digression

Expressions courantes : on a tangent, off on a tangent

tangente

Droite qui touche une courbe en un point sans la traverser à cet endroit.

En anglais simple : A straight line that touches a curved line at one point without passing across it there.

• Draw a tangent here.
• The tangent touches the circle at point A.
• We calculated the slopes of three tangents.

Comment l'utiliser : tangent to something (Draw a tangent to the circle at this point.)

Expressions courantes : draw a tangent, tangent to something

tangente

Sinus d’un angle divisé par son cosinus ; dans un triangle rectangle, côté opposé divisé par côté adjacent à l’angle droit.

En anglais simple : An angle's sine divided by its cosine; in a right triangle, the opposite side divided by the adjacent side.

• Calculate the tangent of this angle.
• The tangent of forty-five degrees is one.
• We used a calculator to find the tangent.

Comment l'utiliser : tangent of an angle (Find the tangent of this angle.)

Expressions courantes : tangent of something, calculate the tangent

rectiligne

Qui va tout droit, sans courbe, notamment pour une route ou une voie ferrée.

En anglais simple : Straight, without a curve to either side, especially when describing a road or railway.

• The train reached tangent track.
• This tangent section runs beside the river.
• Engineers inspected the tangent stretches of the railway.

Synonymes : straight

Contraires : curved

Expressions courantes : tangent track, tangent section, tangent alignment