marginal

Pluralmarginals

1. 1
   adjective

   Close to the lowest acceptable level, so that the thing barely qualifies or risks being excluded from a group or category.

   Her application was marginal, scraping past the cutoff by a single point.

   The water samples showed marginal levels of contamination, right at the limit regulators allow.

   Similarborderline

   Note

   Here the margin is a narrow gap rather than an edge, the idea that also underlies barely productive land and the close-fought seat. Unlike the spatial uses, this one grades freely and hedges well: writing that is marginal at best, students who are marginal against a standard, marginal weather that tests inexperienced pilots. It is a verdict of just scraping in or nearly falling out.

2. 2
   adjective

   Located at or near an edge or border; also used figuratively for things at the edge of importance or attention.

   The marginal vegetation fringing the lake differs sharply from the plants found further inland.

   His ideas stayed marginal to the main debate, mentioned only in passing.

   Similarperipheral, outlying, minor, tangential

   Oppositecentral

   Note

   The root sense the others branch from: a learned borrowing of Medieval Latin marginālis, simply margin plus -al. Here the word places things rather than judging them, so it is usually not graded. A strip of salt-marsh is at the edge or it is not. That sets it apart from the "barely acceptable" meaning, where more marginal and most marginal come naturally.

3. 3
   adjective

   Relating to the change in cost, benefit, or output that results from producing or consuming one additional unit of a good.

   Firms set output where marginal revenue equals marginal cost.

   The marginal utility of each additional slice of pizza tends to fall as you eat more.

   Similarincremental

   Note

   An economist's term of art that works almost entirely before a noun: marginal cost, marginal revenue, marginal utility. Formally it names the derivative of a total with respect to one more unit, holding other quantities fixed. It is not graded, and it says nothing about size. A marginal cost is not a small cost, which is the easy confusion with the "barely acceptable" meaning.

4. 4
   adjective

   Pushed to the edges of a society or group, with little power, status, or inclusion in mainstream life.

   Activists fought for the rights of marginal groups long excluded from public life.

   Policies that ignore marginal populations often deepen existing inequality.

   Similarmarginalized, excluded, disadvantaged, disenfranchised

   Oppositemainstream, privileged, dominant

   Note

   Sociology's word for people held at the edge of a society, excluded from full part in its economic, political and cultural institutions. It serves as a near-synonym of marginalized and most often stands before a plural noun, as in marginal groups or marginal populations. Do not read it as the "barely acceptable" meaning: a marginal group has been pushed aside, not judged inadequate.

5. 5
   adjective

   Producing barely enough to be worthwhile; only just profitable or useful.

   The company closed its marginal mines, which barely covered their running costs.

   Farmers struggle to make a living on marginal land at the edge of the desert.

6. 6
   adjective

   Lying next to another region or territory and sharing a border with it.

   The survey covered the marginal districts where the two provinces meet.

   The province is marginal to two larger neighbors, a position that has shaped its trade for centuries.

   Similaradjacent, bordering, neighboring, contiguous

   Note

   A geographer's sense, and it usually takes to: Monmouthshire is a Welsh county marginal to England. Naming the neighbor matters, because without the to-phrase readers drift toward the "at the edge" meaning or hear something minor. Like bordering, it does not come in degrees. One territory adjoins another or it does not, so more marginal has no place here.

7. 7
   adjective

   Inscribed or printed in the blank space along the edge of a book's page.

   The scholar studied the marginal annotations scribbled beside the printed text.

   Faded marginal jottings revealed how the monk had read the manuscript.

8. 8
   adjectiveAustraliaNew ZealandUK

   Likely to switch from one party to another with only a small shift in votes, usually because the previous election was won by a narrow margin.

   Both leaders campaigned hard in the marginal constituencies that would decide the election.

   A swing of just two percent could flip several marginal seats.

   Oppositesafe

   Note

   Election analysts in Britain, Australia and New Zealand apply it to seats, and unlike many political labels it grades freely: a seat can be highly marginal, more marginal than its neighbor, or the most marginal of all. Australian Politics For Dummies (2010) describes the pendulum, which ranks each side's seats from least to most marginal. Used as a noun, a marginal is the seat itself.

9. 9
   nouncountable

   An electoral district that was won by a small margin and could easily change hands at the next election.

   Campaign managers poured money into the closest marginals across the country.

   Losing that marginal cost the governing party its majority.

   Note

   Political shorthand that drops the noun: a marginal is simply a marginal seat, the close-fought seat standing on its own. It counts and pluralizes like any noun, so commentators speak of the closest marginals or of losing a marginal. Because a small swing decides these seats, campaigns concentrate their money and attention on them.

10. 10
    nouncountable

    A person or thing considered to be at the edge of a group, of little importance or barely included.

    The book tells the stories of marginals living on society's edges.

    She refused to be treated as a marginal in her own field.

    Similaroutsider, outcast, misfit

    Oppositeinsider

    Note

    The adjective turned into a countable noun, and it sits comfortably in the plural. Elizabeth B. Lee's Sociology For People (1990) sets a discipline's marginals and mavericks against its mainliners, which is the typical frame: insiders contrasted with those on the fringe. For the electoral seat, English uses the political noun instead.

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