From Longman Dictionary of Contemporary Englishfringe group/event/issue etcfringe group/event/issue etca group, event etc that is less important or popular than the main group etc, or whose opinions are not accepted by most other people involved in the same activity OPP mainstream He used a party conference fringe meeting to defend terrorism. The environment is no longer a fringe issue. a fringe religious sect → fringe
Examples from the Corpus
fringe group/event/issue etc• After the uproar created by Nicholas Tolstoy over the Cossack repatriations, the fringe groups had been taken very seriously.• To transform a scholarly consensus into something that appears the obsession of a disreputable fringe group requires more than accidental bias.• The remaining 5 percent aligned themselves with fringe groups such as the Natural Law, Green and Libertarian parties.• One girl shared her story of a fringe group, which for ten years had dominated her life.• Few attendees doubted that some fringe groups would respond violently. 