distant
- 1Far off, whether in physical space, in time, or in mental or logical relation.
From the hilltop they admired the distant city lights below.
Her memory of that distant summer had faded into a blur.
Similarfaraway
Note
Much of its everyday work is done by ear and by family tree: a distant rumbling, the distant notes of a coach horn in the American novelist Winston Churchill's The Celebrity (1897), a distant relative. A distant look belongs here too. It means a mind that is elsewhere rather than a cold one, and that chill belongs to the emotional meaning. The word came through Middle English distaunt and Old French from Latin distāns.
- 2Cool and reserved toward others, showing little emotion or holding back one's real feelings.
Ever since the argument, she had been cold and distant with her colleagues.
He became distant whenever anyone asked about his childhood.
Similarcold, aloof, cool, reserved, remote
Oppositewarm, friendly, affectionate
Note
Here the gap is one a person keeps. The word often marks a change in someone, as in she has been distant toward me ever since our argument. The person being held off is introduced with toward or with. Like its neighbors aloof and cold, distant sits comfortably after be or become.
- 3Of a broadcast signal or station, brought in from another market and carried on a local cable TV system, which may make a copyright royalty payable.
The operator paid extra fees for carrying a distant signal from another region.
Regulators tracked how many distant stations each cable system imported.
Oppositelocal
Note
Cable regulation turned the everyday adjective into a yes-or-no classification. A signal is either distant or local, so this sense takes no more or most. The test is the signal's relation to a specific local area, the CATV community, not miles alone. That is why Gary L. Christensen's Cable Television in a New Era (1983) can describe a signal that is distant to part of a system and local to the rest.
Practice
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Origin
It was inherited from Middle English "distaunt", from Old French "distant", which came from Latin "distāns".