Marginal \Mar"gin*al\, a. [Cf. F. marginal.]
1. Of or pertaining to a margin.
[1913 Webster]
2. Written or printed in the margin; as, a marginal note or
gloss.
[1913 Webster]
3. At the lower limit; barely sufficient; as, of marginal
utility.
[PJC] marginal cost
The Collaborative International Dictionary of English v.0.48
marginal
adj 1: at or constituting a border or edge; "the marginal strip of
beach" [syn: fringy]
2: of questionable or minimal quality; "borderline grades";
"marginal writing ability" [syn: borderline]
3: of a bare living gained by great labor; "the sharecropper's
hardscrabble life"; "a marginal existence" [syn: hardscrabble]
4: just barely adequate or within a lower limit; "a bare
majority"; "a marginal victory" [syn: bare(a)]
5: producing at a rate that barely covers production costs;
"marginal industries"; "marginal land"
6: of something or someone close to a lower limit or lower
class; "marginal abilities"
WordNet (r) 2.0
41 Moby Thesaurus words for "marginal":
bordering, borderline, boundary, bounding, coastal, determinant,
determinative, determining, disputable, doubtful, dubious, extreme,
fringing, frontier, inferior, infinitesimal, insignificant, limbic,
liminal, limit, limiting, littoral, low-priority, minimal,
negligible, no great shakes, of no account, of no consequence,
of no matter, of no significance, on the edge, questionable,
rimming, secondary, skirting, slight, small, terminal, threshold,
tiny, unimportant
Moby Thesaurus II by Grady Ward, 1.0
marginal adj. [common] 1. [techspeak] An extremely small change. "A
marginal increase in core can decrease GC time drastically." In
everyday terms, this means that it is a lot easier to clean off your
desk if you have a spare place to put some of the junk while you sort
through it. 2. Of little merit. "This proposed new feature seems rather
marginal to me." 3. Of extremely small probability of winning. "The
power supply was rather marginal anyway; no wonder it fried."
Jargon File (4.3.1, 29 Jun 2001)
marginal
1. Extremely small. "A marginal increase in core
can decrease GC time drastically." In everyday terms, this
means that it is a lot easier to clean off your desk if you
have a spare place to put some of the junk while you sort
through it.
2. Of extremely small merit. "This proposed new feature seems
rather marginal to me."
3. Of extremely small probability of winning. "The power
supply was rather marginal anyway; no wonder it fried."
[{Jargon File]
(1994-10-21)
The Free On-line Dictionary of Computing (27 SEP 03)
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