adjacent, a. and n.
(əˈdʒeɪsənt)
[ad. L. adjacent-em pr. pple. of adjacē-re to lie near; f. ad to + jacē-re to lie. Cf. Fr. adjacent, 16th c. in Littré.]
A. adj.
1. Lying near or close (to); adjoining; contiguous, bordering. (Not necessarily touching, though this is by no means precluded.) adjacent angles, the angles which one straight line makes with another upon which it stands. Also fig. in Logic of nearness in resemblance.
| c 1430 Lydg. Bochas v. xiii. (1554) 132 a, There wer two cuntries therto adiacent. 1509 Barclay Ship of Fooles (1570) 104 [He] warred on other realmes adiacent. 1606 Shakes. Ant. & Cl. ii. ii. 218 A strange inuisible perfume hits the sense Of the adiacent Wharfes. 1663 Gerbier Counsel 6 The Houses adjacent, and those which are opposite. 1745 De Foe Eng. Tradesm. XI. xxxiv. 72 Those parts of Essex, Surrey, and Kent, which lie adjacent to London. 1789–96 J. Morse Amer. Geog. I. 302 The adjacent inhabitants had assembled in arms. 1827 Hutton Course of Math. I. 317 The sum of the two adjacent angles dac and dab is equal to two right angles. 1846 Mill Logic iii. xxi. §4 (1868) II. 108 With a reasonable degree of extension to adjacent cases. 1860 Tyndall Glaciers i. §2. 20 Furnishing ourselves with provisions at the adjacent inn. |
† B. n. That which is adjacent, or lies next to anything; an adjoining part; a neighbour. Obs.
| 1610 Healey St. Aug., City of God 721 The LXX rather expressed the adjacents, then the place it selfe. 1635 Shelford Disc. 220 (T.) He hath no adjacent, no equal, no corrival. 1725 De Foe Voy. round World (1840) 224 The whole place and its adjacents. |