Optimal vs Marginal - What's the difference?
optimal | marginal |
The best, most favourable or desirable, especially under some restriction.
# (artificial intelligence) Describing a search algorithm that always returns the best result.
(uncomparable) Of, relating to, or located at or near a margin or edge; also figurative usages of location and margin (edge) .
# Written in the margin of a book.
#* 1999 , R. I. Page, Introduction to English Runes , Boydell Press, page 198:
# (geography) Sharing a border; geographically adjacent.
(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.
# (of land) Barely productive.
# (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.
#* 2002 , Andrew Geddes, Jonathan Tonge, Labour?s Second Landslide: The British General Election 2001 ,
#* 2007 , Robert Waller, Byron Criddle, The Almanac of British Politics ,
#* 2010 , Nick Economou, Zareh Ghazarian, Australian Politics For Dummies ,
(economics, uncomparable) Pertaining to changes resulting from a unit increase in production or consumption of a good.
As adjectives the difference between optimal and marginal
is that optimal is the best, most favourable or desirable, especially under some restriction while marginal is (uncomparable) of, relating to, or located at or near a margin or edge; also figurative usages of location and margin (edge) .As a noun marginal is
something that is.optimal
English
Adjective
(-)- Finding the optimal balance between features and price is a common problem.
Synonyms
* best, idealmarginal
English
Adjective
(en-adj)- 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.
- There were more marginal notes than text.
- The early pages had marginal notes most of which were lost when rats nibbled away the manuscript edges.
- Monmouthshire is a Welsh county marginal to England.
- 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 .
- He farmed his marginal land with difficulty.
- In Bristol West, Labour had a majority of only 1,000, so the seat is considered highly marginal this time around.
page 79,
- In ‘battleground’ seats with the Conservatives, Liberal Democrat vote shares increased most in the most marginal seats.
page 58,
- In Outer London, Harrow East is now a more marginal Labour hold than Harrow West.
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.
