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ENGLISH · A WORD WITH POSSIBILITIES

marginal.

Of, relating to, or located at or near a margin or edge; also figurative usages of location and margin (edge).

8 characters3 syllables approx.English language

Meaning & usage

adj/ˈmɑː.d͡ʒɪ.nəl/Received-Pronunciation/ˈmɑɹ.d͡ʒɪ.nəl/Canada, General-American/ˈmɐː.d͡ʒɪ.nəl/Australia
  1. Of, relating to, or located at or near a margin or edge; also figurative usages of location and margin (edge).

    not-comparable · usually
    The marginal area at the edge of the salt-marsh has its own plants.
    In recent years there has been an increase in violence against marginal groups.
  2. Of, relating to, or located at or near a margin or edge; also figurative usages of location and margin (edge). Written in the margin of a book.

    not-comparable · usually
    There were more marginal notes than text.
  3. Of, relating to, or located at or near a margin or edge; also figurative usages of location and margin (edge). Sharing a border; geographically adjacent.

    not-comparable · usually
    Monmouthshire is a Welsh county marginal to England.
  4. Determined by a small margin; having a salient characteristic determined by a small margin. Of a value, or having a characteristic that is of a value, that is close to being unacceptable or leading to exclusion from a group or category.

    comparable · not-comparable · usually
    His writing ability was marginal at best.
    Having reviewed the test, there are two students below the required standard and three more who are marginal.
  5. Determined by a small margin; having a salient characteristic determined by a small margin. Barely productive.

    comparable · not-comparable · usually
    He farmed his marginal land with difficulty.
  6. Determined by a small margin; having a salient characteristic determined by a small margin. Subject to a change in sitting member with only a small change in voting behaviour, this usually being inferred from the small winning margin of the previous election.

    Australia · New-Zealand · UK · comparable · not-comparable · usually
    In Bristol West, Labour had a majority of only 1,000, so the seat is considered highly marginal this time around.
  7. Pertaining to changes resulting from a unit increase in production or consumption of a good.

    not-comparable · usually
  8. Marginalized.

    not-comparable · usually
Where this word comes from

Learned borrowing from Medieval Latin marginālis, equivalent to margin + -al.

noun/ˈmɑː.d͡ʒɪ.nəl/Received-Pronunciation/ˈmɑɹ.d͡ʒɪ.nəl/Canada, General-American/ˈmɐː.d͡ʒɪ.nəl/Australia
  1. Something or somebody that is marginal.

  2. A constituency won with a small margin.

Where this word comes from

Learned borrowing from Medieval Latin marginālis, equivalent to margin + -al.

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Definitions, grammatical labels, IPA, etymology and examples: Wiktionary contributors, extracted by Kaikki / Wiktextract. Adapted under CC BY-SA 4.0. Selected fields and authored examples are shown; third-party quotations and audio are omitted. See contributor history.

Last enriched 2026-09-10. Definitions are in English. Romanizations are shown when supplied by the source; syllable estimates are omitted for unsupported scripts.