borderline

1. 1.

   of questionable or minimal quality

   “borderline grades”

   “marginal writing ability”

   Synonymsmarginal

   Similarminimal

Other forms of borderline

plural

borderlines·

Forms marked · are formed by the regular rule rather than recorded in the source data. English keeps a few hundred irregulars and the rest follow the pattern, so the rule is right far more often than not — but it is a rule, and the mark says so.

Questions about borderline

What does borderline mean?

borderline means "a line that indicates a boundary". That is the primary sense; the word has 2 in total, listed in full on this page.

How many syllables are in borderline?

borderline has 3 syllables: bor-der-line. The stress falls on "bor". In IPA it is /ˈbɔɹdɚˌlaɪn/.

What is another word for borderline?

Close synonyms include boundary line, border, delimitation, mete, marginal. Each sense on this page lists its own synonyms, because a word with several meanings rarely has one substitute that works for all of them.

Is borderline a common word?

borderline is banded "Familiar" — widely understood, used when the subject calls for it. The band comes from how often the word appears in a large corpus of everyday English, not from an editor's impression.

What rhymes with borderline?

34 words rhyme with borderline. Rhymes are matched on the phonemes from the last stressed vowel onward, which is the definition a reader has in their head.