adjacent

adjective ad·ja·cent \ə-ˈjā-s^ənt\

: close or near : sharing a border, wall, or point

Full Definition of ADJACENT

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

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

— ad·ja·cent·ly adverb

See adjacent defined for English-language learners

See adjacent defined for kids

Examples of ADJACENT

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
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
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
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
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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

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>.