Veer?

Question

I got these 3 example sentences of a word 'veer'. But I've had difficulty in understanding. Could anyone help?

Veer from the script, however, and the results are mixed.

And if you want to veer off the path, you'll know where to go.

Recovery is heavily ideologized and there's tons of money in it, so discussions tend to veer off into dogma.

KrisBlueNZ · Accepted Answer

Veer or veer off generally means to devate from the proper path or direction.
A good example is a car veering off the road. The car was driving straight along the road, and suddenly it changed direction slightly and started heading towards the edge of the road. In the case of veer off, the car then went off the road completely.

The usage of veer in examples 1 and 3 is figurative or metaphorical. There's no actual road, or car, but there are equivalents.

1. "Veer from the script, however, and the results are mixed."
The script is the road, and the actor is the car. The actor is supposed to follow the script. If he gets an idea into his head, and decides to improvise, he is veering off the script. The result (outcome) may be good, or it may not.

2. "And if you want to veer off the path, you'll know where to go."
This refers to a person travelling along a path. Without context, I can't say whether the path is a literal path that you walk along, or a figurative path.

3. "Recovery is heavily ideologized and there's tons of money in it, so discussions tend to veer off into dogma."
The idea of a discussion veering off into a different subject or topic is common. The discussion is following a particular subject, then one or more people start to discuss something else - in this case, dogma - and the discussion has now veered off the original topic and is following a new course, or topic.

A related word is tangent ("TANN-jint"), or tangential ("tann-JENN-shul"). When a discussion veers off into a new topic, the new topic or discussion can be described as tangential or at a tangent to the original discussion.

Ruddvanni · Answer

Thanks a Lot!

Veer?

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