border on

phrasal verb

bordered on; bordering on; borders on

1

: to have a border on (something) : to lie on a boundary of (something)

The area my ancestors come from borders on the Atacama Desert.

2

: to be very like (something) : to come very close to being (something)

The play's dialog borders on the ridiculous.

an enthusiasm bordering on fanaticism

Examples of border on in a Sentence

Recent Examples on the Web

His car was blown up by an IED near Ukraine’s border on April 18. —Mohammed Soliman, MSNBC Newsweek, 28 Apr. 2025

Mark Rutte, who was the Prime Minister of the Netherlands from 2010 to 2024, is now the secretary-general of NATO, an organization that President Trump regards with an indifference bordering on contempt. —Anthony Lane, New Yorker, 25 Apr. 2025

Patrick Crusius, 26, is expected to plead guilty on Monday to capital murder and receive a sentence of life in prison with no possibility of parole for the racist mass shooting near the U.S.-Mexico border on Aug. 3, 2019. —Landon Mion, FOXNews.com, 20 Apr. 2025

Solskjaer felt that overconfidence bordering on arrogance might be PSG’s Achilles’ heel. —Andy Mitten, New York Times, 20 Apr. 2025

Rhymes for border on

• aileron
• antiphon
• autobahn
• carillon
• castellan
• celadon
• cephalon
• chitosan
• cynodon
• denouement
• deuteron
• echelon