distant

• distaunt, dystant, dystaunt (all obsolete)

Inherited from Middle English distaunt, from Old French distant, from Latin distāns.

• IPA^(key): /ˈdɪstənt/

• Audio (US):

  (file)

• Rhymes: -ɪstənt

distant (comparative more distant, superlative most distant)

1. Far off (physically, logically or mentally).

   Synonyms: faraway; see also Thesaurus:distant

   We heard a distant rumbling but didn't pay any more attention to it.   She was surprised to find that her fiancé was a distant relative of hers.   His distant look showed that he was not listening to me.

   • 1897 December (indicated as 1898), Winston Churchill, chapter IV, in The Celebrity: An Episode, New York, N.Y.: The Macmillan Company; London: Macmillan & Co., Ltd., →OCLC:

     Judge Short had gone to town, and Farrar was off for a three days' cruise up the lake. I was bitterly regretting I had not gone with him when the distant notes of a coach horn reached my ear, and I descried a four-in-hand winding its way up the inn road from the direction of Mohair.

2. Emotionally unresponsive or unwilling to express genuine feelings.

   Synonyms: aloof, cold; see also Thesaurus:aloof

   Ever since our argument, she has been totally distant toward me.

3. (television, not comparable) Imported into a cable television system from a different market (and thus possibly incurring a copyright royalty).

   Antonym: local

   • 1973, Cable Television, Rand Corporation:

     Any determination that a particular television signal is "distant" must, of course, be made with respect to its proximity to a specific local area, which we have termed the CATV community, […]

   • 1983, Gary L. Christensen, Cable Television in a New Era, page 128:

     Finally, there will be those unusual situations where a signal is distant to part of a CATV system and local to the rest of it.

distant (plural distants)

1. This term needs a definition. Please help out and add a definition, then remove the text {{rfdef}}.
   • 1881, “Railway Signalling”, in The Railway Engineer‎^[1], volume 2, page 76:

     Semaphore signals are now variously designated according to the situation or functions they fulfil e.g. "starters," "distants," "stops," "homes," "receiving " "departing," and "distributing" signals; but virtually they may be all reduced and recognized as the three former.

• “distant”, in Webster’s Revised Unabridged Dictionary, Springfield, Mass.: G. & C. Merriam, 1913, →OCLC.
• William Dwight Whitney, Benjamin E[li] Smith, editors (1911), “distant”, in The Century Dictionary […], New York, N.Y.: The Century Co., →OCLC.
• “distant”, in OneLook Dictionary Search.

• Dantist

Learned borrowing from Latin distantem.

• IPA^(key): (Central) [disˈtan]
• IPA^(key): (Balearic, Valencia) [disˈtant]

• Audio (Barcelona):

  (file)

distant m or f (masculine and feminine plural distants)

1. distant

   Synonyms: llunyà, remot

   Antonyms: pròxim, proper

• distància
• distar

• “distant”, in Diccionari de la llengua catalana [Dictionary of the Catalan Language] (in Catalan), second edition, Institute of Catalan Studies [Catalan: Institut d'Estudis Catalans], April 2007
• “distant”, in Gran Diccionari de la Llengua Catalana, Grup Enciclopèdia Catalana, 2026
• “distant” in Diccionari normatiu valencià, Acadèmia Valenciana de la Llengua.
• Alcover, Antoni Maria; Moll, Francesc de Borja (1963), “distant”, in Diccionari català-valencià-balear (in Catalan)

Learned borrowing from Latin distantem.

• IPA^(key): /dis.tɑ̃/

• Audio (France (Vosges)):

  (file)

distant (feminine distante, masculine plural distants, feminine plural distantes)

1. distant
2. aloof

• distance

• → Romanian: distant

• “distant”, in Trésor de la langue française informatisé [Digitized Treasury of the French Language], 2012

distant

1. third-person plural present active indicative of distō

Borrowed from French distant, from Latin distantem.

distant m or n (feminine singular distantă, masculine plural distanți, feminine/neuter plural distante)

1. distant, remote

• distanță

Learned borrowing from Latin distantem.

distant m (feminine singular distanta, masculine plural distants, feminine plural distantas)

1. (Puter) distant, remote, faraway

   Synonym: luntaun