Nonadjacent

Part of speech: adjective

Definitions

1. Not next to or touching each other; separated by one or more intervening items or spaces
2. Separated by intervening elements or gaps
3. not directly in proximity to one another

Etymology: Nonadjacent is a plain English compound: the prefix "non-" joined to "adjacent," which is itself built from Latin "ad," meaning "to" or "at," and "iacere," meaning "to throw" or "to lie." Adjacent therefore preserves the sense of things thrown or lying next to one another. The Latin verb "adiacere" meant "to lie near," and its present participle "adiacens" gave English the word "adjacent." The prefix "non-" has a longer English pedigree. It comes from Old English "nān," meaning "not one" or "none," which passed through Middle English as "non-" before settling into the negating prefix we use today. So "nonadjacent" is a purely English formation that marks the absence of adjacency, describing elements that are separated by something in between.

Synonyms: disparate, separate, noncontiguous, isolated, remote

Antonyms: adjacent, contiguous, neighboring, connected, proximity