borderland

noun

bor·​der·​land ˈbȯr-dər-ˌland How to pronounce borderland (audio)
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

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 That day in Paris, the Jardin des Plantes felt like a borderland where worlds were colliding. Ben Crair, The New Yorker, 5 Mar. 2024 More than five hundred unaccompanied children were arriving each day; thousands of them were stuck in borderland holding facilities. Jonathan Blitzer, The New Yorker, 17 Feb. 2024 Senior Hamas leader killed in blast in Beirut, group says The strike heightened fears in the region that the skirmishes along this volatile borderland could explode into all-out war. Shira Rubin, Washington Post, 5 Jan. 2024 Buried in the lengthy budget request is $101 million to upgrade and maintain the network of surveillance towers scattered throughout the borderlands, first noted by The Intercept. Gaby Del Valle, The Verge, 12 Mar. 2024 Only in recent decades has the Caesar salad’s borderland origins entered the public consciousness. Daniel Hernandez, Los Angeles Times, 30 Jan. 2024 The Palestinian diaspora, more than six million people worldwide today, spans the borderlands of Lebanon, Syria and Egypt, together home to nearly a million Palestinians, and includes enclaves as far-flung as Dearborn, Mich., and Santiago, Chile. Moises Saman, New York Times, 21 Dec. 2023 Myanmar’s ruling military is facing attacks on multiple fronts in its borderlands as an alliance of ethnic minority insurgent groups combines with pro-democracy fighters to challenge the junta’s rule. Reuters, NBC News, 22 Nov. 2023 On the ground, the NUG’s reach may be limited, or at least circumscribed by the imperatives of the alphabet soup of armed factions operating in across Myanmar’s ethnic-minority borderlands. Ishaan Tharoor, Washington Post, 7 Dec. 2023

These examples are programmatically compiled from various online sources to illustrate current usage of the word 'borderland.' Any opinions expressed in the examples do not represent those of Merriam-Webster or its editors. Send us feedback about these examples.

Word History

First Known Use

1811, in the meaning defined at sense 1a

Time Traveler
The first known use of borderland was in 1811

Dictionary Entries Near borderland

Cite this Entry

“Borderland.” Merriam-Webster.com Dictionary, Merriam-Webster, https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/borderland. Accessed 20 Apr. 2024.

Kids Definition

borderland

noun
bor·​der·​land ˈbȯrd-ər-ˌland How to pronounce borderland (audio)
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
Last Updated: - Updated example sentences
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