submarginal

/ˌsʌbˈmɑrdʒənəl/
adjective
  1. Below an acceptable or usual standard; not good enough.
    • The company stopped selling the product due to submarginal quality.
    • The restaurant received bad reviews because of its submarginal service.
    • His submarginal test scores meant he had to retake the class.
  2. In economics, describing land or resources that are not profitable to use because they produce too little value.
    • The mining company decided that the ore deposit was submarginal and not worth extracting.
    • Farmers abandoned the submarginal land because it could not grow enough crops.
    • Submarginal farmland is often left to return to forest.
What does "submarginal" mean? | whatsthatwordmean | whatsthatwordmean