fringe

plural fringes

1. A decorative border.

   the fringe of a picture

   1 more example

   The walls were hung with blue silk, edged with silver fringe; and the closely-drawn blue velvet curtains swept the ground.

   1834, L[etitia] E[lizabeth] L[andon], chapter XI, in Francesca Carrara. […], volume I, London: Richard Bentley, […], (successor to Henry Colburn), →OCLC, page 118

   1. broadlyA border or edging.

      He walked up the heath’s western edge, beside a fringe of scrub where hogweed grew in tangles and brambles rose taller than him.

      2020 March 5, Tom Lamont, “The invisible city: how a homeless man built a life underground”, in The Guardian

2. alsofigurativelyA marginal or peripheral part.

   the confines of grace and the fringes of repentance

   1651–1653, Jer[emy] Taylor, ΕΝΙΑΥΤΟΣ [Eniautos]. A Course of Sermons for All the Sundays of the Year. […], 2nd edition, London: […] Richard Royston […], published 1655, →OCLC

   1 more example

   Dos Santos, who has often been on the fringes at Spurs since moving from Barcelona, whipped in a fantastic cross that Pavlyuchenko emphatically headed home for his first goal of the season.

   2011 September 29, Jon Smith, “Tottenham 3 - 1 Shamrock Rovers”, in BBC Sport

   Synonyms: edge, periphery

3. A group of people situated on the periphery of a larger community.

   1 more example

   About an hour later, the two were sitting at a comparatively isolated table in a restaurant called Sickler’s, downtown, a highly favored place among, chiefly, the intellectual fringe of students at the college—the same students, more or less, who, had they been Yale or Harvard men, might rather too casually have steered their dates away from Mory’s or Cronin’s.

   1955, J. D. Salinger, “Franny”, in Franny and Zooey, Boston, Mass.: Little, Brown and Company, published 1991, →ISBN, page 10

   1. alsoattributiveThose members of a political party, or any social group, holding extremist or unorthodox views.

      a fringe group of the party

4. The periphery of an area, especially a town or city.

   He lives on the fringe of London.

   1 more example

   Moreover, although a number of lines penetrate to the fringes of the English Lake District, this is the only one which actually passes through it.

   1961 October, ""Voyageur"", “The Cockermouth, Keswick & Penrith Railway”, in Trains Illustrated, page 598

   Synonyms: outskirts

   1. AustraliaUsed attributively with reference to Aboriginal people living on the edge of towns etc.

      All the fringe people thought it was such a good house, ingenious in fact, and erected similar makeshift housing for themselves.

      2006, Alexis Wright, Carpentaria, Giramondo, published 2012, page 20

      Synonyms: outskirts

5. UKSynonym of bangs: hair hanging over the forehead, especially a hairstyle where it is cut straight across.

   Her fringe is so long it covers her eyes.

   4 more examples

   In a few minutes Mrs. Athelny appeared. She had taken her hair out of the curling pins and now wore an elaborate fringe.

   1915, W[illiam] Somerset Maugham, “Chapter LXXXVIII”, in Of Human Bondage, New York, N.Y.: George H[enry] Doran Company, →OCLC

   Fayne in the photograph had a fringe, hair frizzed over hidden ears, sleeves over-ornate, the whole thing out of keeping.

   1981, Hilda Doolittle, HERmione, page 155

   Ingeborg knew she wasn′t ready for fringes or short hair like some of the women she′d seen, and she hoped her daughter wasn′t either. “No.” Astrid′s tone dismissed Sophie and the fringe as she galloped off to a new topic.

   2007, Lauraine Snelling, Sophie's Dilemma, page 16

   Set against the seductive visual and textual imagery of these soft-focus fantasy worlds, the stock list details offer the reader a very real solution to achieving the look themselves, ‘Hair, including coloured fringes (obtainable from Joseph, £3.50) by Paul Nix’ (Baker 1972a: 68).

   2009, Geraldine Biddle-Perry, Sarah Cheang, Hair: Styling, Culture and Fashion, page 231

   Synonyms: bangs

6. natural sciencesA light or dark band formed by the diffraction of light.

   interference fringe

7. Non-mainstream theatre.

   The Fringe

   2 more examples

   Edinburgh Fringe

   Adelaide Fringe

8. biologyThe peristome or fringe-like appendage of the capsules of most mosses.
9. golfThe area around the green.
10. broadcastingA daypart that precedes or follows prime time.

comparative more fringe · comparative fringer · superlative most fringe · superlative fringest

1. Outside the mainstream.

   So was the cellist Charlotte Moorman, muse to Nam June Paik and proactivist champion of all things fringe.

   2015 September 7, Holland Cotter, “Exhibitions Where Moral Force Trumps Market Forces”, in New York Times

   Synonyms: nonmainstream, marginal, peripheral, alternative, fringy

present singular third person fringes · participle present fringing · participle past fringed · past fringed

1. transitiveTo decorate with fringe.

   Presently she saw the King's palace. Pillars of ice held up the roof fringed with icicles, which would have sparkled splendidly if there had been any sun.

   1887, Louisa M[ay] Alcott, “The Frost King and How the Fairies Conquered Him”, in Lulu’s Library, volume II, Boston, Mass.: Roberts Brothers, →OCLC, page 10

   1 more example

   [Y]onder cloud / That rises upward always higher, / ⁠And onward drags a labouring breast, / ⁠And topples round the dreary west, / A looming bastion fringed with fire.

   1850, [Alfred, Lord Tennyson], “Canto XV”, in In Memoriam, London: Edward Moxon, […], →OCLC, page 24

2. transitiveTo serve as a fringe; to border.

   Purple bonnets fringed soft, pink, querulous faces on pillows in bath chairs.

   1922, Virginia Woolf, chapter 2, in Jacob's Room

   1 more example

   The Japanese Archipelago, fringing the eastern edge of Asia, has a rich avifauna, including what is probably the rarest bird in the world - the Toki or Japanese Crested Ibis, and one of the most recently discovered birds - the Okinawa Rail.

   1982, A Field Guide to the Birds of Japan, Tokyo: Kodansha International, page 8