borderland

noun

1. Land near a border; marches.

   “retaining Liddesdale and his other Borderlands and Offices in his owne person”

   “1850, Charlotte Brontë, letter dated 16 March, 1850, in The Life of Charlotte Brontë by Elizabeth Gaskell, London: Smith, Elder, 1857, Volume 2, Chapter , p. , some of the ancient East Lancashire families, whose mansions lie on the hilly border-land between the two counties”

   “They came to the river that marked the very edge of the borderland of the Wild […]”

   “[…] he pieces together his tale: arson, cattle raids, the usual borderlands story, ending in destitution, the making of orphans.”

   “Documentary filmmaker Cristina Ibarra is among the 25 fellows. Ibarra is known for creating narratives about Latino families living in borderland communities, the MacArthur website said.”

2. (figuratively)An intermediate state, category, etc.

   “Near-synonyms: twilight zone, shadowland”

   “Is he [the Scotchman] orthodox—he has no doubts. Is he an infidel—he has none either. Between the affirmative and the negative there is no border-land with him. You cannot hover with him upon the confines of truth, or wander in the maze of a probable argument.”

   ““Mr. Alwyn, the line between virtue and foolishness is dim and wavering, and I should hate to see you lost in that marshy borderland. […]””

   “But she did not look as if she were dying; she looked as if she might go on existing in this borderland between life and death for ever.”

   “the subject lies in the misty borderlands of advancing knowledge”