distant

adj

Etymology: Etymology tree Proto-Indo-European *dwóh₁ Proto-Indo-European *d(w)is- Proto-Italic *dis- Latin dis- Proto-Indo-European *steh₂- Proto-Indo-European *-éh₁ti Proto-Indo-European *-yeti Proto-Indo-European *-éh₁yeti Proto-Indo-European *sth₂éh₁yeti Proto-Italic *staēōder. Latin stō Latin distō Latin distānsder. Old French distantbor. Middle English distaunt English distant Inherited from Middle English distaunt, from Old French distant, from Latin distāns.

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

   “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.”

   “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.

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

3. Imported into a cable television system from a different market (and thus possibly incurring a copyright royalty).

   “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, […]”

   “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.”