borderline
Americanadjective
-
on or near a border or boundary.
-
having an uncertain, indeterminate, or debatable status.
He was a borderline case for admission to the program—please encourage him to apply again next year.
-
not quite meeting accepted, expected, or average standards.
Discover specific how-to strategies for turning a borderline student into a confident achiever.
- Synonyms:
- marginal, unsure, precarious, doubtful
-
approaching bad taste or obscenity.
He made several borderline remarks that offended them.
noun
-
borderlines
plural
-
null border line.
-
a border or boundary.
The town of Tiverton, Rhode Island, rests on the once-disputed Massachusetts borderline.
-
a notional dividing line.
Often the borderline between safety and toxicity is very small, and every year thousands of fish die as a consequence of chemical overdosing.
-
-
a person with borderline personality disorder.
noun
-
a border; dividing line; line of demarcation
-
an indeterminate position between two conditions or qualities
the borderline between friendship and love
adjective
Other Word Forms
Noun Inflected Forms
Etymology
Origin of borderline
Example Sentences
Examples are provided to illustrate real-world usage of words in context. Any opinions expressed do not reflect the views of Dictionary.com.
See Examples For:
"In the face of cutbacks in preventative services and huge waiting lists, what's happening is those grey cases, those borderline cases, more of those children are coming to care," Broadhurst explains.
From BBC ● Oct. 6, 2026
"For patients at borderline risk, knowing their calcium score can help determine whether their risk is actually lower or higher than initially estimated, which can help guide treatment decisions," Shah explained.
From Science Daily ● Sep. 12, 2026
“On ‘Hot Ones’ you have those moments of people who are struggling, who are vulnerable, who are in a borderline state of panic.
From Los Angeles Times ● Jul. 24, 2026
For Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick and Andrew Giuliani, the executive director of the White House’s World Cup task force and son of Rudy Giuliani, the borderline call was an injustice that demanded executive intervention.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Jul. 6, 2026
The idea is to make myself look like someone who’s spent the night in a regular home with kitchen and washer and dryer, not like someone who’s borderline homeless.
From "Nickel and Dimed: On (Not) Getting By in America" by Barbara Ehrenreich
They move freely, obscuring borderlines between categories that once loomed like separate land masses: jazz and chamber music; acoustic and electric ensembles; songs and improvised forms.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Jan. 27, 2026
When Ms Clark had her smear in 2015, the result was negative when it should have highlighted borderlines changes.
From BBC ● Sep. 12, 2023
Global warming also has had its way with borderlines.
From Washington Post ● May 7, 2020
Nevertheless, in the last few years, the borderlines of acceptable looking have become blurred.
From The Guardian ● Feb. 27, 2019
Such a distribution was artificial but, once made, necessarily influenced the borderlines to the north and south.
From Area Handbook for Albania by Sarah Jane Elpern
Definitions and idiom definitions from Dictionary.com Unabridged, based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2023
Idioms from The American Heritage® Idioms Dictionary copyright © 2002, 2001, 1995 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company.
