marginal

Meanings

1. 1
   adj

   at or constituting a border or edge

   the marginal strip of beach

2. 2
   adj

   producing at a rate that barely covers production costs

   marginal industries

3. 3
   adj

   Of, relating to, or located at or near a margin or edge; also figurative usages of location and margin (edge).

   The marginal area at the edge of the salt-marsh has its own plants.

4. 4
   adj

   Determined by a small margin; having a salient characteristic determined by a small margin.

   His writing ability was marginal at best.

5. 5
   adj

   Marginalized.

   The caseworker couldn't understand how I could have stretched out my last bit of money for so long. She seemed convinced that I was "hiding" income from her and interrogated me for I don't know how long. […] The system seems based on the assumption that people are "welfare cheats." If you don't speak English or are marginal in some other way, it's worse.

6. 6
   noun

   Something or somebody that is marginal.

   […] discusses those who belong to the discipline's dominant cults, the mainliners, and their relations with the marginals and mavericks.

7. 7
   adj

   of questionable or minimal quality

8. 8
   adj

   just barely adequate or within a lower limit

Etymology

Learned borrowing from Medieval Latin marginālis, equivalent to margin + -al.