borderland

noun

bor·​der·​land ˈbȯr-dər-ˌland 

1

a

: territory at or near a border

b

: fringe sense 3a

lives on the borderland of society

2

: a vague intermediate state or region

the borderland between fantasy and reality

Synonyms

• border
• frontier
• march

Examples of borderland in a Sentence

in the borderland between sleeping and waking

He describes adolescence as the tumultuous borderlands between childhood and adulthood.

Recent Examples on the Web

Potentially the biggest beneficiary of Assad’s departure is Turkey, a longtime opposition backer that hosts some 3.2 million Syrian refugees and which controls swaths of its southern neighbor’s borderlands. —Nabih Bulos, Los Angeles Times, 8 Dec. 2024

In the early 2000’s, the modern militia movement—which formed in the 1980s out of animus toward the federal government—started training its sights on the nearly 2,000-mile stretch of borderland that the US shares with Mexico. —Tess Owen, WIRED, 21 Nov. 2024

As the fund progresses, the Mellon aims to bring others national funders to supporting binational artistic production along the borderlands to maximize the support that organizations in the region receive. —Maximilíano Durón, ARTnews.com, 18 Oct. 2024

In each of the last two summers, Laura Mae Williams, who recovers bodies for the New Mexico Medical Investigator’s Office, has had to visit the U.S.-Mexico borderlands multiple times a week. —David Noriega, NBC News, 18 Oct. 2024

Word History

First Known Use

1811, in the meaning defined at sense 1a

Kids Definition

borderland

noun

bor·​der·​land ˈbȯrd-ər-ˌland 

1

: territory at or near a border : frontier

2

: an unclear condition or region separating two clearly different ones

the borderland between sleeping and waking