narrow

American  

[nar-oh] / ˈnær oʊ /

adjective

narrower, narrowest

1. of little breadth or width; not broad or wide; not as wide as usual or expected.

   a narrow path.

2. limited in extent or space; affording little room.

   narrow quarters.

3. limited in range or scope.

   a narrow sampling of public opinion.

4. lacking breadth of view or sympathy, as persons, the mind, or ideas.

   a narrow man, knowing only his professional specialty;

   a narrow mind.

   Synonyms:

   small-minded , shallow , limited , biased

5. with little margin to spare; barely adequate or successful; close.

   a narrow escape.

6. careful, thorough, or minute, as a scrutiny, search, or inquiry.

7. limited in amount; small; meager.

   narrow resources.

8. characterized by limited means; straitened; impoverished.

   Since work was scarce, he soon found himself in narrow circumstances.

9. New England.  stingy or parsimonious.

10. Phonetics.

    1. (of a vowel) articulated with the tongue laterally constricted, as the ee of beet, the oo of boot, etc.; tense.

    2. (of a phonetic transcription) utilizing a unique symbol for each phoneme and whatever supplementary diacritics are needed to indicate its subphonemic varieties.

11. (of livestock feeds) proportionately rich in protein.

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verb (used without object)

1. to decrease in width or breadth.

   This is where the road narrows.

verb (used with object)

1. to make narrower.

2. to limit or restrict (often followed bydown ): to narrow down a contest to three competitors.

   to narrow an area of search;

   to narrow down a contest to three competitors.

3. to make narrow-minded.

   Living in that village has narrowed him.

noun

1. a narrow part, place, or thing.

2. a narrow part of a valley, passage, or road.

3. (used with a singular or plural verb)  narrows, a narrow part of a strait, river, ocean current, etc.

4. the Narrows, a narrow strait from upper to lower New York Bay, between Staten Island and Long Island. 2 miles (3.2 kilometers) long; 1 mile (1.6 kilometers) wide.

narrow British  

/ ˈnærəʊ /

adjective

1. small in breadth, esp in comparison to length

2. limited in range or extent

3. limited in outlook; lacking breadth of vision

4. limited in means or resources; meagre

   narrow resources

5. barely adequate or successful (esp in the phrase a narrow escape )

6. painstakingly thorough; minute

   a narrow scrutiny

7. finance denoting an assessment of liquidity as including notes and coin in circulation with the public, banks' till money, and banks' balances Compare broad

   narrow money

8. dialect  overcareful with money; parsimonious

9. phonetics

   1. another word for tense 1

   2. relating to or denoting a transcription used to represent phonetic rather than phonemic distinctions

   3. another word for close 1

10. (of agricultural feeds) especially rich in protein

11. informal  an escape only just managed

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verb

1. to make or become narrow; limit; restrict

noun

1. a narrow place, esp a pass or strait

narrow Idioms  

More idioms and phrases containing narrow

• straight and narrow

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Other Word Forms

• narrowly adverb
• narrowness noun
• overnarrow adjective
• overnarrowly adverb
• overnarrowness noun
• unnarrow adjective
• unnarrowed adjective
• unnarrowly adverb

Etymology

Origin of narrow

First recorded before 900; Middle English narw(e), nareu(e), narow(e), Old English nearu (inflectional stem nearw- ), cognate with Old Saxon naru “narrow,” Dutch naar “dismal, unpleasant,” Old Saxon naro, naru “narrow, depressing”; possibly akin to German Narbe “scar,” literally, “narrow mark”

Example Sentences

Their long, narrow snouts and rows of thin, pointed teeth allowed them to catch agile prey such as fish and turtles.

From Science Daily

"I think he's walked the line, which is a very narrow line between modernity and kind of absurdity extremely well," he says of Prince William.

From BBC

In 1905, the Industrial Workers of the World rejected the AFL’s narrow craft unionism, calling for one big union uniting all workers to abolish wage labor.

From The Wall Street Journal

Paterson persuaded the Scottish parliament to establish a new enterprise based on England’s East India Company to found a Scottish colony on the narrow isthmus joining North and South America.

From The Wall Street Journal

“We have now decided to narrow the support to only vulnerable refugees,” Geoffrey Mugabe, a senior official in the Ugandan prime minister’s office, said.

From The Wall Street Journal

Related Words

• cramped
• definite
• limited
• precarious
• precise
• slender
• slim
• small
• thin
• tight