borderline
Americanadjective
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on or near a border or boundary.
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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.
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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.
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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.
-
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a person with borderline personality disorder.
noun
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a border; dividing line; line of demarcation
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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.
The desire is already there — loud, obvious, borderline operatic.
From Salon
"The borderline decision was made by the match referee, and details of the rearranged fixture will be made available as soon as possible," said a Dundee statement.
From BBC
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.
“Even 200 wins is borderline undoable unless they have a lot of good fortune.”
One person wrote on Facebook about seeing “borderline junk yard cars quite regularly.”
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.
