Germane means closely relevant to the matter being discussed. Not germane to the question, germane to the argument, hardly germane.
It always takes to and is the courteous way of ruling something out of order. It is the same word as german in cousin-german, meaning of the same parents, and Hamlet is where the modern sense took hold.
1adjectivegermaneClosely relevant to the matter being discussed.
“Her comments about the budget were not germane to the question of the new park.”
germane is a quality.
It is german with an e on the end, and nothing to do with the country: the old adjective german means born of the same parents, so a brother-german is a full brother. A germane point is a brother to the matter in hand, not a stranger to it.
hooks ontobrother
A variant of german, meaning of the same parents, from Latin germanus.
Proto-Indo-European
*ǵenh₁-
English, today
germane
Built from
A variant form of german (“having the same parents; related”), adapted in this sense in allusions to its use in Shakespeare's Hamlet (see quotations at germaine).
Etymology from Wiktionary, CC BY-SA