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

(er)

Having little flesh; lean; thin.

Poor, deficient or inferior in amount, quality or extent; paltry; scanty; inadequate; unsatisfying.

A meager piece of cake in one bite.

* {{quote-book

, year=1607 , author=Thomas Walkington , title=The Optick Glasse of Humors, or, The touchstone of a golden temperature, or ... , page=54 citation , passage=...that begets many ugly and deformed phantasies in the braine, which being also hot and drie in the second extenuates and makes meager the body extraordinarily, ...}}

* {{quote-book

, year=1637 , author=William Shakespeare , title=The most excellent Historie of the Merchant of Venice: With the extreame crueltie of Shylocke ... , page=E5 citation , passage=Nor none of thee thou pale and common drudge tween man and man: but thou, thou meager lead which rather threatnest then dost promise ought...}}