How to use borderline in a sentence
27 example sentences · adjective, adverb, noun
Borderline means nearly; not clearly on one side or the other of a border or boundary, ambiguous. Example: “I would rather hire a talented layman than a university graduate with borderline qualifications.”
Examples of borderline by meaning
adjectiveNearly; 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.
- The review says the business case for this was at best borderline, but goes on to say that the case greatly underestimated passenger demand and that the railway Scotland built has capped its capacity.2023 September 6, Philip Haigh, “£30 billion plan to transform the rail network in Ireland”, in RAIL, number 991, page 25
adjectiveOf questionable taste or acceptability; approaching bad taste.
- Your borderline remarks about my aunt’s dress destroyed my evening.
adjectiveExhibiting or characteristic of 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.2003 December 8, Leslie Atkinson, Research Scientist at the Psychiatry Research Unit Susan Goldberg, Susan Goldberg, Attachment Issues in...
adverbNearly; not entirely but nevertheless to a great extent.
- He is borderline hypoglycemic and needs to monitor his sugar intake.
- I expected him to be super boring but he was actually borderline funny!
nounA boundary or accepted division; a border.
- She lives on the borderline between reality and madness.
More sentences with borderline
- Jackson got himself run in the top of the sixth for arguing a borderline strike three call.From the entry run
- The borderline between East and West Berlin was very closely guarded.From the entry closely
- The government knows that the liberal broadsheet press is shot through with anti-Putin, borderline Russophobic prejudice.2022 January 24, Tim Black, “The UK Must Stop Meddling in Ukraine: Boris Johnson’s Sabre-rattling is Both Desperate and Dangerous”, in Tom…. From the entry bête noire
- It can also amplify escapism and suicidal ideas typical of borderline cases and conditions.2020, Mehdi Khosrowpour, editor, Encyclopedia of Criminal Activities and the Deep Web, page 665. From the entry digital autism
- It is amazing how often really good birders are borderline megalomaniacs.2005, Sean Dooley, The Big Twitch, Sydney: Allen and Unwin, page 37. From the entry birder
- The paraschizophrenic borderline, or "borderline schizophrenic," is somewhat, or almost but not quite, schizophrenic.1992, Diagnosis and Treatment of the Personality Disorders, page 142. From the entry paraschizophrenic
- First, Edward undergoes an experimental — and borderline science-fictional — medical treatment that instantly removes any traces of his disease.2024 September 25, Adam Nayman, “About face: Sebastian Stan plays an actor with neurofibromatosis who reinvents himself after medical…. From the entry science-fictional
- She was a borderline nyctophobe; had insisted on sleeping with a night-light on the entire time they'd been married.2010, Bill Pronzini, The Hidden, New York, N.Y.: Walker & Company, →ISBN, page 35. From the entry nyctophobe
- You might argue about letting borderline students squeak through some courses, but who wants a nurse who misfigures her meds?2000, Donald J. Goodman, A Diamond in the Rough: Muskegon Community College, page 321. From the entry misfigure
- Some paraschizophrenic borderlines are in fact physically different.1992, Diagnosis and Treatment of the Personality Disorders, page 142. From the entry paraschizophrenic
- A fulldriven switch would be switched from one borderline to the other borderline, eg, A' for OFF and B' for ON.1958, Richard B. Hurley, Junction Transistor Electronics, Digitized edition (Electronics), Univ. of Michigan, published 2006, page 341. From the entry fulldriven
- Individuals with borderline personality disorder (BPD) commonly have a favorite person (FP), whom they are heavily emotionally attached to and dependent on.2022 December, Hyorim Jeong, Min Jin Jin, Myoung Ho Hyun, “Understanding a Mutually Destructive Relationship Between Individuals With…. From the entry FP
- Each side of the mediotemporal region on Neurogam—processed SPECT 3D images was assessed by simple in-house unpublished semiquantitative scale (0 –negative, 1 –borderline, 2 –positive).2016 January 5, “Moderate Changes in the Circadian System of Alzheimer's Disease Patients Detected in Their Home Environment”, in PLOS…. From the entry mediotemporal
- By watching where the snow melted first, I discovered warmer spots that I knew would be possible locations for late-winter bloomers or borderline hardy plants.2012, David L. Culp, The Layered Garden: Design Lessons for Year-Round Beauty from Brandywine Cottage, Timber Press, page 503. From the entry hardy
- I'm, like, borderline big sister age.” “Maybe you need to spend less time looking up teen slang on ChatGPT because it's giving you a tech neck.2026 March 12, Spencer Taylor, “Squirrels and Fat Cats” (12:16 from the start), in Animal Control, season 4, episode 8, spoken by Zoe…. From the entry cringey
- A borderline decrease in the lymphohistocytic infiltrate in the subcutis was associated with higher vaccine dose at C1, along with a trend for an increasing CD4:CD8 ratio.2015 July 5, Evan J Lipson et al., “Safety and immunologic correlates of Melanoma GVAX, a GM-CSF secreting allogeneic melanoma cell…. From the entry lymphohistocytic
- Borderline autistic and obsessive-compulsive, with serious anger management issues and a dangerous behavioural disorder that in the real world would get him a one-way ticket to the rubber room.2003 July 2, Peter Bradshaw, “Punch-Drunk Love”, in The Guardian, UK, retrieved 07 Aug 2014. From the entry autistic
- The misimplication is to assume that the ordinary logic of treatment applicable to the neurotic child can be applied to the borderline or psychotic chile, as well.1976, Rudolf Ekstein, In Search of Love and Competence, page 157. From the entry misimplication
- He claims that, regarding a borderline red-pink blob, we are obliged to respect the truth of 'if the blob is to be red then it is not to be pink.'2000 September 28, Rosanna Keefe, Theories of Vagueness, Cambridge University Press, →ISBN, page 44. From the entry penumbral
- It is time we forgot the old distinctive class borderline between the snapshotter and the amateur photographer, which was based on the capabilities of the equipment the two sectors used.1987, The British Journal of Photography, volume 134. From the entry snapshotter
Meaning of borderline
- adjective Nearly; not clearly on one side or the other of a border or boundary, ambiguous.
- adjective Of questionable taste or acceptability; approaching bad taste.
- adjective Exhibiting or characteristic of borderline personality disorder.
Questions about borderline in a sentence
- How do you use borderline in a sentence?
- Borderline is used as an adjective, adverb and noun. For example: “I would rather hire a talented layman than a university graduate with borderline qualifications.”
- What is a short sentence with borderline?
- “Some paraschizophrenic borderlines are in fact physically different.”
- What does borderline mean?
- Borderline means nearly; not clearly on one side or the other of a border or boundary, ambiguous.
Source and license
Adapted from Wiktionary: borderline (page history and authors) and the entries each sentence comes from. Text available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 license. Word.ws chose the sentences, left out offensive ones and quotations older than 1900, and marked the word in each. Wiktionary data of 2026-09-02.
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Cite this page: “How to use borderline in a sentence.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/sentences/borderline. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.
