relevant

relevant, germane, material, pertinent, apposite, applicable, apropos are comparable when they mean having a relation to or a bearing upon the matter in hand or the present circumstances.

Something relevant has a traceable connection, especially logical connection, with the thing under consideration and has significance in some degree for those who are engaged in such consideration

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the judge decided that the evidence was relevant and therefore admissible

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great books are universally relevant and always contemporary; that is, they deal with the common problems of thought and action that confront men in every age and every clime— Adler

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Something germane is so closely related (as in spirit, tone, or quality) to the subject, the matter, the occasion, or the issue that the fitness or appropriateness of their association is beyond question

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enliven his lecture by introducing amusing anecdotes germane to his subject

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an interesting point but not germane to the issue

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the passionate cravings which are germane to the hermit life— H. O. Taylor

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Something material is so closely related to the matter in hand that it cannot be dispensed with without having an evident and especially a harmful effect

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the motion is supported by an affidavit showing that the evidence is material—B. F. Tucker

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certain passages material to his understanding the rest of this important narrative— Scott

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Something pertinent is so decisively or significantly relevant that it touches the real point at issue or contributes materially to the understanding of what is under discussion or to the solution of what is in question

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once a thing did become pertinent, he had an amazing faculty for absorbing it wholly— Terry Southern

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it is more pertinent to observe that it seems to me that logically and rationally a man cannot be said to be more than once in jeopardy in the same cause, however often he may be tried— Justice Holmes

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Something apposite is relevant and germane to such a degree that it strikes one both by its pertinency and by its felicitousness

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an apposite illustration

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apposite quotations. . . came easily to his pen to grace the pellucid flow of his English— Partington

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whatever she did, she made her circumstances appear singularly apposite and becoming— Sackville-West

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Something applicable may be brought to bear upon or be used fittingly in reference to a particular case, instance, or problem

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the word tool is applicable to a plow only when used in a general sense

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the principle is not applicable to the case in question

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although ... I do not get much help from general propositions in a case of this sort, I cannot forbear quoting what seems to me applicable here— Justice Holmes

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Something apropos is both appropriate and opportune

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a person who is not aware of an undercurrent of feeling may make remarks that are far from apropos

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we . . . find a new pleasure in the hackneyed words. They are really not quite apropos— Julian Huxley

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Sometimes it can suggest relevancy rather than appropriateness or opportuneness

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he is not witty but Frenchily apropos— Flanner

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Analogous words: *related, cognate, allied: fitting, appropriate, proper (see FIT): important, significant, weighty (see corresponding nouns at IMPORTANCE)

Antonyms: extraneous

Contrasted words: alien, foreign, *extrinsic