Adjective

(en-adj)

(uncomparable) 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.

In recent years there has been an increase in violence against marginal groups.

# Written in the margin of a book.

There were more marginal notes than text.

#* 1999 , R. I. Page, Introduction to English Runes , Boydell Press, page 198:

The early pages had marginal notes most of which were lost when rats nibbled away the manuscript edges.

# (geography) Sharing a border; geographically adjacent.

Monmouthshire is a Welsh county marginal to England.

(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.

His writing ability was marginal at best.

''Having reviewed the test, there are two students below the required standard and three more who are marginal .

# (of land) Barely productive.

He farmed his marginal land with difficulty.

# (politics, chiefly, UK, Australia, NZ, 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.

In Bristol West, Labour had a majority of only 1,000, so the seat is considered highly marginal this time around.

#* 2002 , Andrew Geddes, Jonathan Tonge, Labour?s Second Landslide: The British General Election 2001 , page 79,

In ‘battleground’ seats with the Conservatives, Liberal Democrat vote shares increased most in the most marginal seats.

#* 2007 , Robert Waller, Byron Criddle, The Almanac of British Politics , page 58,

In Outer London, Harrow East is now a more marginal Labour hold than Harrow West.

#* 2010 , Nick Economou, Zareh Ghazarian, Australian Politics For Dummies , unnumbered page,

The pendulum lists the seats from least marginal' to most '''marginal''' for the government on one side, and least '''marginal''' to most ' marginal for the opposition on the other side.

(economics, uncomparable) Pertaining to changes resulting from a unit increase in production or consumption of a good.

Adjective

(en adjective)

Having relevant and crucial value.

:

*

*:Thus, when he drew up instructions in lawyer language, he expressed the important words by an initial, a medial, or a final consonant, and made scratches for all the words between; his clerks, however, understood him very well.

*{{quote-book, year=1963, author=(Margery Allingham), title=(The China Governess)

, chapter=20 citation , passage=The story struck the depressingly familiar note with which true stories ring in the tried ears of experienced policemen.

*1988, (Robert Ferro), Second Son :

*:For this was the most important thing, that when a person felt strongly about an issue in life, it mustn’t be ignored by others; for if it was, everything subsequent to it would turn out badly, even though there should seem to be no direct connection.

*{{quote-magazine, year=2013, month=May-June, author= Katrina G. Claw

, title= Rapid Evolution in Eggs and Sperm , volume=101, issue=3, magazine=(American Scientist) , passage=In plants, the ability to recognize self from nonself plays an important role in fertilization, because self-fertilization will result in less diverse offspring than fertilization with pollen from another individual.}}