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
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approaching bad taste or obscenity.
He made several borderline remarks that offended them.
noun
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null border line.
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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
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.
“My daughter fought for a long time with extreme mental health, borderline personality disorder, other things.”
From Los Angeles Times • May 11, 2026
She bristles when she realizes some dentists are using AI images to upsell patients—deploying color-coded overlays to dramatize borderline findings and justify questionable treatments.
From The Wall Street Journal • May 8, 2026
“If consumers were compelled to live within their means, real consumer spending right now would be in a borderline recessionary state,” writes veteran economist David Rosenberg, head of Rosenberg Research.
From Barron's • Apr. 30, 2026
"It is a difficult – borderline existential – balancing act for Spotify," says Robert Prey, who studies streaming platforms at Oxford University's Internet Institute.
From BBC • Apr. 27, 2026
She had been warned that she was now a borderline diabetic.
From "Class Matters" by The New York Times
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.
