Bordering

How to spell bordering

9 letters · 3 syllables

How to pronounce bordering

Say the part in capitals loudest.

What does bordering mean?

1. verbLying next to or forming the edge of something; running alongside a boundary.
2. verbComing close to a particular state or quality; verging on.

Bordering in a sentence

• The meadow bordering the river floods every spring.

• His patience was bordering on exhaustion after the long meeting.

• Countries bordering the sea depend heavily on fishing and trade.

• The remark was rude, bordering on insulting.

Where does bordering come from?

Language of origin: French

This is the present participle of the verb 'border', which traces back to the Old French 'bordure', meaning the edge or rim of something, itself built on 'border', meaning 'to edge' or 'to provide with a border'. The Old French word came from a Frankish (Germanic) root related to 'bord', meaning a side, plank, or edge of a ship, the same family that gave English the word 'board'. By the late 1300s English had taken 'border' as a noun for a margin or boundary, and the verb sense of touching or running alongside an edge followed soon after. The '-ing' ending then turned the verb into the form used for ongoing action or for describing something that lies next to something else. Remembering that the word is simply 'border' plus '-ing' (with the silent-sounding middle '-er-' kept intact) helps avoid dropping that vowel when writing it.

How the word is built

• bord(er) (edge, boundary)
• -er (forming the noun border)
• -ing (present participle / verb suffix)