Relevance is how closely something bears on the matter in hand. Whether it actually belongs in this conversation.
The word is a test rather than a quality, and it always implies a question: relevant to what? Courts use it strictly, and a judge may rule evidence inadmissible for lack of relevance. Public life uses it about staying in touch with the present, so an institution worrying about its relevance is worrying about being ignored. The adjective is relevant, and its opposite, irrelevant, is one of the sharpest short dismissals in English.
1nounrelevanceThe degree to which something relates to the matter being considered.
“I fail to see the relevance of that question.”
Latin
relevāns
Scots
relevant
English
relevant
English, today
relevance
Built from
From relevant + -ance. relevant comes from Scots relevant meaning "legally pertinent," used in Scottish legal circles starting in the early 1500s, and first used in English in the 1700s. Borrowed from Latin relevāns, present active participle of relevō (“lift up again, lighten, relieve”), from re- (“again”) + levō (“lift”).
Etymology from Wiktionary, CC BY-SA