What does "borderline" mean?

A boundary or accepted division; a border.

What is a synonym for "borderline"?

Common synonyms include: ambiguous, border, bordering, boundary, boundary line, boundary line.

How do you pronounce "borderline"?

Pronounced //ˈboɹ.dɚˌlaɪn//.

Borderline

//ˈboɹ.dɚˌlaɪn// adj, adv, noun, verb

adj, adv, noun, verb ·Moderate ·College level

Definitions

Noun

1
A boundary or accepted division; a border. countable
"She lives on the borderline between reality and madness."
2
a line that indicates a boundary wordnet
3
Ellipsis of borderline personality disorder. abbreviation, alt-of, ellipsis, uncountable
"The four overlapping concepts of borderline were as follows : (1) A residual model […] (2) An affective disorder model, which considered BPD as an affective spectrum illness displaying prominent[…]"
4
A person who has borderline personality disorder. countable
"As an example of their affective profile, borderlines are set apart from passive aggressives by having more marked social anxiety […] and greater sensitivity […]"

Verb

1
To border, or border on; to be physically close or conceptually akin to. transitive

Adjective

1
Nearly; not clearly on one side or the other of a border or boundary, ambiguous.
"I would rather hire a talented layman than a university graduate with borderline qualifications."
2
Of questionable taste or acceptability; approaching bad taste.
"Your borderline remarks about my aunt’s dress destroyed my evening."
3
Exhibiting borderline personality disorder.
"She clearly has borderline and narcissistic features and she meets the criteria for a rapid cycling bipolar disorder, as well as for a generalized anxiety disorder. She has a severe binge eating disorder and has gained 65 pounds since[…]"

Adjective

1
of questionable or minimal quality wordnet

Adverb

1
Nearly; not entirely but nevertheless to a great extent. not-comparable
"He is borderline hypoglycemic and needs to monitor his sugar intake."

Synonyms

All synonyms

ambiguous border bordering boundary boundary line boundary line

Example

More examples

"It is the borderline cases that are always in danger: the dignified buildings of the past which may possess no real artistic or historic value, but which people have become sentimentally attached to and have grown to love."

Etymology

From border + line.

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Data sourced from Wiktionary, WordNet, CMU, and other open linguistic databases. Updated March 2026.