borders on
Comes close to
Borders on means to come close to or verge upon, usually something negative or extreme: His confidence borders on arrogance, The delay borders on negligence.
The phrase suggests approaching a boundary without quite crossing it—almost but not quite reaching the thing named.
Less commonly, it describes physical adjacency: Montana borders on Canada.
- nearsComes closer to
- approximatingGetting close to
- neighboringSituated beside another
- abuttingSharing a common border
- resemblingShowing similarity to
next door to · adjacent · verging · contiguous · looks like · adjoining · brink · on the brink of · skirting · demarcation · boundary · confines · proximate · nearby · encroaches · edge · limit · divider
border, borders, bordered, bordering, borderland, borderlands, borderline, borderers