marginal
IPA: mˈɑrdʒʌnʌɫ
noun
- Something or somebody that is marginal.
- (politics) A constituency won with a small margin.
adjective
- (not comparable) 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.
- (geography) Sharing a border; geographically adjacent.
- (comparable) 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.
- (of land) Barely productive.
- (politics, chiefly UK, Australia, New Zealand, of a constituency) 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.
- (economics, not comparable) Pertaining to changes resulting from a unit increase in production or consumption of a good.
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Examples of "marginal" in Sentences
- The article is only marginally better.
- The role of the government was marginal.
- The only problem is with the marginal cases.
- Moreover, we were adamant that only permanent cuts in marginal tax rates would stimulate the economy.
- The second is what he calls "marginal missions" - stop doing things that are useful but not essential.
- 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.
- 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.
- He testified against increased penalties for sex offenses because he realized that they destroyed the ability of prosecutors to get deals in marginal cases.
- 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.
- 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.
- 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.
- 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.
- 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.