Border States

American  

plural noun

1. U.S. History. the Slave States of Delaware, Maryland, Kentucky, and Missouri, which refused to secede from the Union in 1860–61.

2. the U.S. states touching the Canadian border.

3. certain countries of central and northern Europe that border on the former Soviet Union and belonged to the Russian Empire: Finland, Poland (prior to 1940), Estonia, Latvia, and Lithuania.

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Example Sentences

The economic impact of fewer Canadian visitors in 2025 affects mostly border states that depend heavily on people driving across the border for retail, restaurants, casinos and short-stay hotels.

From Salon

And it isn’t just border states.

From Salon

With Lincoln’s election, Clay had hoped to secure a post in the cabinet, but the president’s advisers feared that his ferocity on the subject of slavery would alienate many in Kentucky and other border states that had stuck with the Union.

From The Wall Street Journal

Lincoln was addressing a fractured North, not abolitionists, and he knew that striking too soon at slavery might drive the wavering border states into Confederate arms—a shift that could doom the Union cause.

From The Wall Street Journal

Deportations are also under way in Delhi, where some 700 people were picked up and flown out to border states in the last six months.

From BBC