Marginal means very small or not very important, like a marginal improvement. It can also mean related to the edge of something, or describing people or groups pushed to the edge of society.
From 'margin' plus the adjective ending '-al', meaning 'of or relating to the margin'. It moved from the idea of physical edges to metaphorical ones.
A 'marginal' group lives at the edges of society, just like notes in the page margins live outside the main text. In business, 'marginal cost' is the extra cost at the edge—just for one more item.
Marginal has been used to describe people and groups pushed to the edges of economic, political, or social systems, including women and gender minorities. Academic and policy discourse sometimes labels groups as 'marginal' without acknowledging the power structures that created that status.
Use marginal precisely for statistical or positional descriptions, and avoid using it as a casual label for people. Prefer formulations that highlight structures (e.g., 'marginalized by policies') rather than implying inherent inferiority.
["peripheral","minimal","slight","marginalized (when agency of exclusion is clear)"]
Women’s work, especially in informal economies, has often been described as 'marginal' despite its centrality to household and community survival.
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