bordering

Pluralborderings

1. 1
   verb

   Present participle and gerund of border.

   The nations bordering the disputed region met to negotiate.

   A tall hedge bordering the property marked the old boundary line.

   Note

   Most often met trailing the noun it describes: the nations bordering the region, a hedge bordering the lawn. Used transitively it takes a direct object. Used intransitively it needs on, upon or with, as in a field bordering on the river. With on or upon it also stretches figuratively toward verging: a calm bordering on indifference. Placed before a noun, the same spelling is the adjective for neighbors.

2. 2
   adjective

   Sharing a common boundary with an adjacent area; lying next to and touching along an edge.

   Residents of the bordering counties commute across the line every day.

   Tensions rose between the bordering nations over a contested strip of land.

   Similarneighboring, adjacent, adjoining, contiguous, abutting

   Oppositedistant, remote

   Note

   Two constructions carry it. Before a noun it stands alone: bordering nations, bordering counties. After a noun it usually takes on, as when Henry Fielding's The History of Tom Jones, a Foundling (1749) seats King Pyrrhus at an ale-house bordering on the theater. That second pattern sits close to the verb's participle. It does not grade: two places either share a line or they do not, so nothing is more bordering than another.

3. 3
   nouncountable

   A decorative pattern or ornament that forms the edge of a surface or design.

   The manuscript's pages featured an intricate floral bordering.

   An ornate bordering framed the central scene of the tapestry.

   Similaredging, trim, frame

   Note

   A word of trimmings and ornament, and unlike the verb form it counts: one bordering, several borderings. Frank Leslie's Lady's Magazine of 1874 sets white silk borderings beside silver buckles, the finishing touches of a garment. Where border names the edge itself, bordering names what is applied to decorate it. It is the ornament rather than the line.

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