"go off on a tangent" meaning in English

See go off on a tangent in All languages combined, or Wiktionary

Verb

Forms: goes off on a tangent [present, singular, third-person], going off on a tangent [participle, present], went off on a tangent [past], gone off on a tangent [participle, past]
Head templates: {{en-verb|go<goes,,went,gone> off on a tangent}} go off on a tangent (third-person singular simple present goes off on a tangent, present participle going off on a tangent, simple past went off on a tangent, past participle gone off on a tangent)
  1. (US) Synonym of fly off at a tangent Tags: US Synonyms: fly off at a tangent [synonym, synonym-of], go off at a tangent [UK] Related terms: go off on one
    Sense id: en-go_off_on_a_tangent-en-verb-aAHPZJOP Categories (other): American English, English entries with incorrect language header

Alternative forms

Download JSON data for go off on a tangent meaning in English (1.3kB)

{
  "forms": [
    {
      "form": "goes off on a tangent",
      "tags": [
        "present",
        "singular",
        "third-person"
      ]
    },
    {
      "form": "going off on a tangent",
      "tags": [
        "participle",
        "present"
      ]
    },
    {
      "form": "went off on a tangent",
      "tags": [
        "past"
      ]
    },
    {
      "form": "gone off on a tangent",
      "tags": [
        "participle",
        "past"
      ]
    }
  ],
  "head_templates": [
    {
      "args": {
        "1": "go<goes,,went,gone> off on a tangent"
      },
      "expansion": "go off on a tangent (third-person singular simple present goes off on a tangent, present participle going off on a tangent, simple past went off on a tangent, past participle gone off on a tangent)",
      "name": "en-verb"
    }
  ],
  "lang": "English",
  "lang_code": "en",
  "pos": "verb",
  "senses": [
    {
      "categories": [
        {
          "kind": "other",
          "name": "American English",
          "parents": [],
          "source": "w"
        },
        {
          "kind": "other",
          "name": "English entries with incorrect language header",
          "parents": [
            "Entries with incorrect language header",
            "Entry maintenance"
          ],
          "source": "w"
        }
      ],
      "glosses": [
        "Synonym of fly off at a tangent"
      ],
      "id": "en-go_off_on_a_tangent-en-verb-aAHPZJOP",
      "links": [
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          "fly off at a tangent",
          "fly off at a tangent#English"
        ]
      ],
      "raw_glosses": [
        "(US) Synonym of fly off at a tangent"
      ],
      "related": [
        {
          "word": "go off on one"
        }
      ],
      "synonyms": [
        {
          "tags": [
            "synonym",
            "synonym-of"
          ],
          "word": "fly off at a tangent"
        },
        {
          "tags": [
            "UK"
          ],
          "word": "go off at a tangent"
        }
      ],
      "tags": [
        "US"
      ]
    }
  ],
  "word": "go off on a tangent"
}

{
  "forms": [
    {
      "form": "goes off on a tangent",
      "tags": [
        "present",
        "singular",
        "third-person"
      ]
    },
    {
      "form": "going off on a tangent",
      "tags": [
        "participle",
        "present"
      ]
    },
    {
      "form": "went off on a tangent",
      "tags": [
        "past"
      ]
    },
    {
      "form": "gone off on a tangent",
      "tags": [
        "participle",
        "past"
      ]
    }
  ],
  "head_templates": [
    {
      "args": {
        "1": "go<goes,,went,gone> off on a tangent"
      },
      "expansion": "go off on a tangent (third-person singular simple present goes off on a tangent, present participle going off on a tangent, simple past went off on a tangent, past participle gone off on a tangent)",
      "name": "en-verb"
    }
  ],
  "lang": "English",
  "lang_code": "en",
  "pos": "verb",
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      "word": "go off on one"
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      "glosses": [
        "Synonym of fly off at a tangent"
      ],
      "links": [
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          "fly off at a tangent",
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      "raw_glosses": [
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      ],
      "synonyms": [
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          "word": "fly off at a tangent"
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  "synonyms": [
    {
      "tags": [
        "UK"
      ],
      "word": "go off at a tangent"
    }
  ],
  "word": "go off on a tangent"
}

This page is a part of the kaikki.org machine-readable English dictionary. This dictionary is based on structured data extracted on 2024-05-03 from the enwiktionary dump dated 2024-05-02 using wiktextract (f4fd8c9 and c9440ce). The data shown on this site has been post-processed and various details (e.g., extra categories) removed, some information disambiguated, and additional data merged from other sources. See the raw data download page for the unprocessed wiktextract data.

If you use this data in academic research, please cite Tatu Ylonen: Wiktextract: Wiktionary as Machine-Readable Structured Data, Proceedings of the 13th Conference on Language Resources and Evaluation (LREC), pp. 1317-1325, Marseille, 20-25 June 2022. Linking to the relevant page(s) under https://kaikki.org would also be greatly appreciated.