aside

adv

1. (not-comparable)To or on one side so as to be out of the way.

   “Move aside, please, so that these people can come through.”

   “But soft! but soft! aside: here comes the king.”

   “[…] and thou shalt set aside that which is full.”

   “The storm rush'd in, and Arcite stood aghast; / The flames were blown aside, yet shone they bright, / Fann'd by the wind, and gave a ruffled light.”

   “Here was my chance. I took the old man aside, and two or three glasses of Old Crow launched him into reminiscence.”

2. (not-comparable)Excluded from consideration.

   “joking aside”

   “unusual circumstances aside”

   “But musical ancestry aside, the influence to which [Justin] Bieber is most beholden is the current trends in pop music, which means Believe is loaded up with EDM [electronic dance music] accouterments, seeking a comfortable middle ground where Bieber’s impressively refined pop-R&B croon can rub up on techno blasts and garish dubstep drops (and occasionally grind on some AutoTune, not necessarily because it needs it, but because a certain amount of robo-voice is expected these days).”

   “All scandals aside, Jewish establishment donors and leaders obsessed not only with Jewish continuity but the right kind of continuity—ardently pro-Israel children of two Jewish parents—have failed on their own terms.”

adj

1. Not in perfect symmetry; distorted laterally, especially of the human body.

   “Her figure was slight; but the cruel accident—a fall in her childhood, which had laid the foundation of her ill health—had made her a little aside, and caused a degree of lameness, which rendered it difficult for her to move without assistance.”

noun

1. An incidental remark to a person next to one made discreetly but not in private, audible only to that person.
2. An incidental remark to a person next to one made discreetly but not in private, audible only to that person. (theater) A brief comment by a character addressing the audience, unheard by other characters.
3. A minor related mention, an afterthought.

   “This, then, is what we have done up to now in this book. (As I have been doing right along) may I make an aside? (An aside is a part in an old-time play or movie in which an actor steps out of character to say something to the audience of a semi-private or semi-confidential nature about the play.) I am confounded, and somewhat appalled when I read over the scholarly works referred to”

   “In addition, an analogy was only classified as significant if it appeared to be part of a serious attempt to generate or evaluate a solution, and as nonsignificant if it was simply mentioned as an aside or commentary. As an example of a nonsignificant analogy, one subject was reminded of another problem he had seen involving the deflection of piano strings of different lengths, but apparently mentioned this as an aside without the intention of applying findings back to the spring problem.”

   “As an aside, and for consideration, the great religions of the world seem to be jealously guarded, run and administered by the men-folk.”