go off on a tangent
UK also go/fly off at a tangentto suddenly start talking or thinking about a completely new subject:
It's hard to get a firm decision out of him - he's always going off on a tangent.
Thesaurus: synonyms and related words
Digressing and being indirect or evasive
- beat
- discursive
- elliptical
- evasive
- gloss over sth
- go (all) round the houses idiom
- implicit
- meander
- move off sth/on (to sth)
- obliquely
- parry
- sanitize
- sidestep
- skirt
- stray
- suggestion
- talk around sth
- tangent
- tiptoe
- tiptoe around sth/sb
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