adjacent

ad·ja·cent

adj \ə-ˈjā-s^ənt\

Definition of ADJACENT

1

a : not distant : nearby <the city and adjacent suburbs> b : having a common endpoint or border <adjacent lots> <adjacent sides of a triangle> c : immediately preceding or following

2

of two angles : having the vertex and one side in common

— ad·ja·cent·ly adverb

Examples of ADJACENT

1. <their house is adjacent to a wooded park>
2. The Harrimans owned two large adjacent houses on N Street, one for themselves and one for Averell Harriman's pictures. —Larry McMurtry, New York Times Review of Books, 23 Oct. 2003
3. Hearing unexpected chords was linked to magnetic activity in a left-brain region known as Broca's area and in adjacent right-brain tissue. —Bruce Bower, Science News, 5 May 2001
4. The hallways, especially those adjacent to the satellite phone, were crowded with journalists, avid to cover the Taliban takeover … —Michael Ignatieff, New Yorker, 24 Mar. 1997
5. Digging further in that spot and five adjacent areas, they retrieved 19 skulls, five eggs, over 150 jaws and hundreds of teeth, limbs and bone bits. —Natalie Angier, Time, 8 Oct. 1984

Origin of ADJACENT

Middle English, from Anglo-French or Latin; Anglo-French, ajesaunt, from Latin adjacent-, adjacens, present participle of adjacēre to lie near, from ad- + jacēre to lie; akin to Latin jacere to throw — more at jet

First Known Use: 15th century

Related to ADJACENT

Synonyms: abutting, adjoining, bordering, conterminous, contiguous, flanking, flush, fringing, joining, juxtaposed, neighboring, skirting, touching, verging

Antonyms: nonadjacent, noncontiguous

Related Words: approximate, close, closest, immediate, near, nearby, nearest, next-door, nigh; attached, communicating, connected, connecting, interconnecting, joined, linked, united; bounding, circumjacent, embracing, encircling, enclosing (also inclosing), fencing, rimming, surrounding; marginal, peripheral, tangent, tangential; ambient, encompassing

Near Antonyms: apart, detached, disconnected, discrete, free-standing, isolate, isolated, removed, separate, single, unattached, unconnected, unlinked; away, distant, far, faraway, far-off, farthest, remote; discontinuous, noncontinuous; broken up, disjoined, dissevered, dissociated, disunited, divided, divorced, parted, ramified, resolved, severed, split, sundered, uncoupled, unyoked

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Synonym Discussion of ADJACENT

adjacent, adjoining, contiguous, juxtaposed mean being in close proximity. adjacent may or may not imply contact but always implies absence of anything of the same kind in between <a house with an adjacent garage>. adjoining definitely implies meeting and touching at some point or line <had adjoining rooms at the hotel>. contiguous implies having contact on all or most of one side <offices in all 48 contiguous states>. juxtaposed means placed side by side especially so as to permit comparison and contrast <a skyscraper juxtaposed to a church>.

Rhymes with ADJACENT

complacent