Liminal

Quick meaning: Liminal is an adjective meaning Of or pertaining to an entrance or threshold.

Meaning

Of or pertaining to an entrance or threshold.

More Meanings

1. Of or pertaining to a beginning or first stage of a process.
2. (anthropology, literary theory) Pertaining to or in a state that is in-between or transitional between two (or more) other states, while belonging to neither; pertaining to or in a state such as to be neither definitively in a particular other state or category nor definitively outside it.

Example Sentences

Every stimulus must reach a certain intensity before any appreciable sensation results. This point is known as the threshold or liminal intensity.

[S]paces such as the threshold of a door are "liminal," lying between otherwise defined areas without belonging to either of them. All over the world, […] liminal situations are associated with demons.

If it felt like a passing of the torch, then on a night of silent jubilee for City it was also a liminal moment for Foden himself: the point at which he stopped being potential. When he stopped being the future and became the present.

There is a reminiscence, which comes and goes, of Mexican words, of Mexican turns of speech and puns. It is a murmur that wanders in the liminal part of his soul, but the writer [Ramón del Valle-Inclán] lets it be felt with full consciousness of what he is doing.

Synonyms for liminal

Depending on context, synonyms include thresholdlike, inceptive, inchoative, marginal.

Related Words

Related dictionary entries include periliminal, superliminal, super-liminal, underthreshold, subliminal, sub-liminal.

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