Definitions
from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 5th Edition.
- adjective Of, relating to, located at, or constituting a margin, a border, or an edge.
- adjective Being adjacent geographically.
- adjective Written or printed in the margin of a book.
- adjective Barely within a lower standard or limit of quality.
- adjective Having to do with enterprises that produce goods or are capable of producing goods at a rate that barely covers production costs.
- adjective Relating to commodities thus manufactured and sold.
- adjective Psychology Relating to or located at the fringe of consciousness.
- noun One that is considered to be at a lower or outer limit, as of social acceptability.
from The Century Dictionary.
- Pertaining to a margin; situated on or near the margin; specifically, written or printed in the margin of a page: as, a marginal note or gloss.
- noun One of the bones which form the border of the carapace in turtles, except in the Trionychoidea, in which they are lacking: same as
marginal plate . See cut undercarapace , 1. - noun In the ammonoid cephalopods, or ammonites, one of the small inflections which sometimes develop on the sides of the antisiphonal lobe of the sutures.
- noun In conchology, one of the outermost teeth on the radula of gastropods; one of the uncini.
- noun In asteroid echinoderms, one of the series of thick plates round the margin of the arms and disk.
from the GNU version of the Collaborative International Dictionary of English.
- adjective Of or pertaining to a margin.
- adjective Written or printed in the margin.
- adjective At the lower limit; barely sufficient.
from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License.
- adjective not comparable Of, relating to, or located at or near a
margin oredge ; also figurative usages of location and margin (edge). - adjective comparable Determined by a small margin; having a salient characteristic determined by a small margin.
- noun Something that is
marginal . - noun A
constituency won with a small margin.
from WordNet 3.0 Copyright 2006 by Princeton University. All rights reserved.
- adjective of questionable or minimal quality
- adjective at or constituting a border or edge
- adjective just barely adequate or within a lower limit
- adjective producing at a rate that barely covers production costs
Etymologies
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Examples
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I think Pennsylvania, Ohio, Florida, West Virginia -- all those what I call marginal states where the pivotal states you're going to see the kind of fluctuations that we're seeing.
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The second is what he calls "marginal missions" - stop doing things that are useful but not essential.
The Seattle Times 2011
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European biofuels developers are buying large tracts of what they call "marginal land" in Africa with the aim of cultivating biofuel crops, particularly the woody bush known as jatropha.
NYT > Home Page By ELISABETH ROSENTHAL 2011
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Prospective buyers, be they another company or a group of investors, hope to win the bid for a company with what we call a marginal difference - meaning, they hope to pay one pound more than their competitors offered.
The Guardian World News Joris Luyendijk 2011
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The industry proposes a 5 percent tax rate after the initial five-year period, but with a 1 percent rate for what it calls marginal wells.
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He testified against increased penalties for sex offenses because he realized that they destroyed the ability of prosecutors to get deals in marginal cases.
The Volokh Conspiracy » Recent Michigan Prosecutions for “Seducing an Unmarried Woman” 2010
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Dean would be pulling out all stops to get Dems elected which would include throwing a lot of money at the Dems in marginal districts.
Think Progress » Armey Accuses ‘Destructive’ Tancredo Of ‘Alienating’ Hispanics 2010
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Moreover, we were adamant that only permanent cuts in marginal tax rates would stimulate the economy.
Evolutionary Psychology and Economic Bias, Bryan Caplan | EconLog | Library of Economics and Liberty 2009
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It does the world no good for members in marginal seats to put districts at risk over unimportant things, or lost causes, but casting tough votes on the big issues is what members of congress come to Washington to do.
Matthew Yglesias » Tom Perriello Explains What It’s All About 2009
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DEATH TO ALL STEP-FUNCTIONS! the logic is clear and simple, to achieve true, well-defined progressivity, the increase in marginal utility of every infinitismal increment of income must be accounted for with a corresponding infinitismal increase in TAX RATE.
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