Tangent: Leg From Leg

When the hypotenuse is not involved at all, the tangent does the job. You stand 7 m from a flagpole and the top is 50° above the ground at your feet. The height is opposite 50°, the 7 m is adjacent, and the ratio of the two legs is the tangent.

The board writes $\tan\left(50^{\circ}\right) = \frac{h}{7}$. Multiply by 7: $h = 7\tan\left(50^{\circ}\right)$, which rounds to 8.34. A tangent above 1 means the opposite leg is longer than the adjacent one, which happens for every angle above 45°: here the pole is taller than your distance from it.