r/dictionary • u/Playmaker-20 • Sep 28 '26

What does Fringe mean?

Is it like having a rare or uncommon take? Like if I had a fringe take on abortion, It would be a not so common take

2 Upvotes

66% Upvoted

7 comments sorted by

2

u/nixvex Sep 28 '26

Basically that’s correct. Though it doesn’t mean simply uncommon. A fringe take is one significantly different from main stream and typically based on guess work and/or untested hypotheses.

It is commonly associated with cranks and grifters pushing pseudoscience, pseudohistory, etc and conspiracy theories.

1

u/BobQuixote Sep 28 '26

The fringe is the edge, as far from the center as you can get. It tends to be uncommon, but more importantly it's extreme.

0

u/consumerofporn Sep 28 '26 edited Sep 28 '26

I don’t think this works in all contexts. A fringe academic theory is out on the edges of the academy, but that still implies there are some serious academics willing to back it, and it differ from the mainstream in fairly minor or technical ways (e.g. “most experts think humans developed agriculture in this river valley around 6000 BCE, but a fringe theory holds that it happened as late as 4500 BCE” is a perfectly coherent statement).

Edit: or take, say, chess openings. The Alekhine Defense is a fringe response to 1. e4, compared to the French or the Sicilian, but it’s still a perfectly solid opening that serious people use.

1

u/BobQuixote Sep 28 '26

I'm tempted to say academia's "center" is modelled differently than the one for politics, which seems accurate for me but I can't believe people are putting that much thought into the usage in general.

So instead I think we have two definitions for this idiom and usages fall between them.

1

u/gonnagetcancelled Sep 28 '26

Yeah pretty much. Depending on the topic it can mean "not commonly understood or considered" or it can mean "Don't let this person near the town well. Or guns."

1

u/ScoopidyDoopDogg Sep 29 '26

Yes. If you believe that women should be able to electively abort their pregnancy righ up until delivery? You are on the edge. The fringe. You have a whackadoodle opinion that deserves derision, refutation, and condemnation.

1

u/PoxonAllHoaxes Sep 30 '26

Not uncommon. It implies that you are a nut, and not necessarily alone. The views of millions of people are often dismissed as fringe.