distant
Americanadjective
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far off or apart in space; not near at hand; remote or removed (often followed byfrom ).
a distant place; a town three miles distant from here.
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apart or far off in time.
distant centuries past.
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remote or far apart in any respect.
a distant relative.
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reserved or aloof; not familiar or cordial.
a distant greeting.
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arriving from or going to a distance, as a communication, journey, etc..
I have here a distant letter from Japan.
adjective
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far away or apart in space or time
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(postpositive) separated in space or time by a specified distance
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apart in relevance, association, or relationship
a distant cousin
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coming from or going to a faraway place
a distant journey
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remote in manner; aloof
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abstracted; absent
a distant look
Other Word Forms
- distantly adverb
- distantness noun
- overdistant adjective
- overdistantly adverb
- quasi-distant adjective
- quasi-distantly adverb
- ultradistant adjective
- undistant adjective
- undistantly adverb
Etymology
Origin of distant
First recorded in 1350–1400; Middle English dista(u)nt, from Anglo-French, from Latin distant-, stem of distāns “standing apart,” present participle of distāre “to stand apart,” from di- di- 2 + stāre “to stand”; stand
Example Sentences
Examples are provided to illustrate real-world usage of words in context. Any opinions expressed do not reflect the views of Dictionary.com.
Measuring how time behaves on distant worlds provides new tests of Einstein's theories of special and general relativity.
From Science Daily
Mr. Brown notes that historians routinely place Roosevelt fourth among presidential greats, after Abraham Lincoln, George Washington and TR’s distant relative Franklin Roosevelt.
Measurements show that this distant supernova closely matches the brightness and spectral features of SN 1998bw, a well known supernova linked to a gamma ray burst that exploded much closer to Earth.
From Science Daily
Studies of very bright exploding stars called supernovas showed that rather than slowing down, distant galaxies were actually accelerating away from each other.
From BBC
The UN peacekeeping force, Minusca, is helping the government to gradually restore basic administration and services, even to distant provincial towns.
From BBC
Definitions and idiom definitions from Dictionary.com Unabridged, based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2023
Idioms from The American Heritage® Idioms Dictionary copyright © 2002, 2001, 1995 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company.
