narrow
Americanadjective
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narrower,
comparative
-
narrowest
superlative
-
of little breadth or width; not broad or wide; not as wide as usual or expected.
a narrow path.
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limited in extent or space; affording little room.
narrow quarters.
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limited in range or scope.
a narrow sampling of public opinion.
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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
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with little margin to spare; barely adequate or successful; close.
a narrow escape.
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careful, thorough, or minute, as a scrutiny, search, or inquiry.
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limited in amount; small; meager.
narrow resources.
-
characterized by limited means; straitened; impoverished.
Since work was scarce, he soon found himself in narrow circumstances.
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New England. stingy or parsimonious.
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Phonetics.
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(of a vowel) articulated with the tongue laterally constricted, as the ee of beet, the oo of boot, etc.; tense.
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(of a phonetic transcription) utilizing a unique symbol for each phoneme and whatever supplementary diacritics are needed to indicate its subphonemic varieties.
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(of livestock feeds) proportionately rich in protein.
verb (used without object)
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narrows,
present (3rd person singular)
-
narrowed,
past participle, past
-
narrowing
present participle
verb (used with object)
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narrows,
present (3rd person singular)
-
narrowed,
past participle, past
-
narrowing
present participle
-
to make narrower.
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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.
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to make narrow-minded.
Living in that village has narrowed him.
noun
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a narrow part, place, or thing.
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a narrow part of a valley, passage, or road.
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(used with a singular or plural verb) narrows, a narrow part of a strait, river, ocean current, etc.
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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.
adjective
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small in breadth, esp in comparison to length
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limited in range or extent
-
limited in outlook; lacking breadth of vision
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limited in means or resources; meagre
narrow resources
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barely adequate or successful (esp in the phrase a narrow escape )
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painstakingly thorough; minute
a narrow scrutiny
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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
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dialect overcareful with money; parsimonious
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phonetics
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(of agricultural feeds) especially rich in protein
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informal an escape only just managed
verb
noun
Other Word Forms
Derived Forms
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narrownessnoun
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overnarrownessnoun
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overnarrowadjective
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unnarrowadjective
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unnarrowedadjective
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narrowlyadverb
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overnarrowlyadverb
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unnarrowlyadverb
Inflected Forms
Adjectives
Participles
Conjugated Forms
Present
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narrowsimple
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narrowssimple
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have narrowedperfect
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has narrowedperfect
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am narrowingprogressive
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are narrowingprogressive
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is narrowingprogressive
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have been narrowingperfect progressive
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has been narrowingperfect progressive
Past
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narrowedsimple
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had narrowedperfect
-
was narrowingprogressive
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were narrowingprogressive
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had been narrowingperfect progressive
Future
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”
Explanation
Narrow means less wide or to make less wide. When you narrow down your choices, you decrease the number of choices. A road might be too narrow for a car. When used to describe something physical such as a street or hips, narrow simply means not wide. Similarly, with quantities it means not much like when you win your basketball game by a narrow margin. But if you use it to describe an attitude, it has the negative meaning of not wide or open enough. If you're narrow-minded, you don't see the big picture –– sometimes it means you think in narrow stereotypes.
Vocabulary lists containing narrow
Unit 3: Compelling Evidence
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Beowulf vocabulary
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"Your World," Vocabulary from the poem
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Example Sentences
Examples are provided to illustrate real-world usage of words in context. Any opinions expressed do not reflect the views of Dictionary.com.
See Examples For:
Bass: Well, it’s hard for me to narrow it to just one.
From Los Angeles Times ● Sep. 20, 2026
Researchers are now trying to narrow down the possibilities by studying subtle characteristics of the moon, including its gravity and motion.
From Science Daily ● Sep. 19, 2026
Damien Corvin believes the gap between starting out in Northern Ireland and building a career is beginning to narrow.
From BBC ● Sep. 19, 2026
They quickly swept into the Red Sea port city of Mokha and took Perim Island in the Bab al-Mandeb, the narrow southern mouth of the Red Sea.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Sep. 19, 2026
He led me down the narrow hallway to a staircase.
From "Code Name Kingfisher" by Liz Kessler
These include the narrower range of activities and restaurant choices, leaving behind friends and family, and for Brianna the difficulty of settling her children into new schools.
From BBC ● Sep. 14, 2026
But new research from Northwestern Medicine suggests the scan may provide its greatest benefit to a narrower group of patients than previously assumed.
From Science Daily ● Sep. 12, 2026
During the Covid pandemic, Congress approved payouts to income-eligible tax filers and their dependents only, a narrower approach that would lower the cost further.
From Barron's ● Sep. 10, 2026
A narrower 240 million subset of just U.S. citizens would bring the cost to $1.2 trillion.
From MarketWatch ● Sep. 10, 2026
It was narrower at the bottom than at the top, and from it pointed a long, narrow finger of stone.
From "Rowan of Rin" by Emily Rodda
The five-year USD/JPY cross-currency basis was recently about negative-30 basis points, the narrowest level since the series began in 2021.
From MarketWatch ● Jul. 23, 2026
At the narrowest point, the Strait of Hormuz and its shipping lanes lie entirely within Iran and Oman's territorial waters.
From BBC ● Jul. 13, 2026
It’s important to appreciate that the students pressed for the narrowest, most modest ruling possible.
From Slate ● Jun. 30, 2026
He starts his four-year term against a tangled web of war, inflation, nosebleed debt—and one of the sharpest and narrowest stock market rallies ever.
From Barron's ● Jun. 16, 2026
The celebrations were tempered, however, by the fact that Harrison had lost by the narrowest of margins, fewer than four thousand votes.
From "The Devil in the White City" by Erik Larson
Yet both authors’ concentration on Douglass the constitutional thinker sometimes narrows the man.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Sep. 4, 2026
However, the gap narrows at Advanced Higher level with a 1.2 percentage point difference between those with and without ASN.
From BBC ● Aug. 4, 2026
Plaque narrows blood vessels and makes them less flexible, increasing the strain on the cardiovascular system.
From Science Daily ● Aug. 1, 2026
If the yen suddenly strengthens further — whether because Japanese authorities intervene or the rate gap between the two currencies narrows — investors could be forced to unwind those positions rapidly.
From MarketWatch ● Jul. 2, 2026
The darker man narrows his eyes and studies Yolanda a moment.
From "How the García Girls Lost Their Accents" by Julia Alvarez
Using the cats' behavior as a guide, the scientists narrowed their search to a lipid fraction in urine containing unusual BFAs.
From Science Daily ● Sep. 20, 2026
The gender gap also narrowed considerably when looking at political preferences among college-educated Latino men and women.
From Los Angeles Times ● Sep. 17, 2026
The spread narrowed over the summer as a ceasefire and a short-lived diplomatic deal between the U.S. and Iran raised hopes that the worst of the conflict might be over.
From MarketWatch ● Sep. 14, 2026
Signet reaffirmed its sales projection for the year to $6.7 billion to $6.9 billion, and narrowed its same-store sales outlook to flat to up 2.5%, from down by almost 1% to up 2.5%.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Sep. 9, 2026
Her eyes narrowed, and she started to say something, then stopped, looking like she was searching for the right word.
From "Half Upon a Time" by James Riley
This can lead to more serious health issues including scarring and narrowing of the esophagus, or even tearing in the esophagus.
From Los Angeles Times ● Sep. 18, 2026
Moonshot's Kimi K3, released this summer, is seen by analysts as the clearest sign yet of that narrowing gap.
From Barron's ● Sep. 17, 2026
There is the tunnel vision, that narrowing of the entire clamoring world down to 100 yards of grass and a single question of whether the men in my colors will get there.
From Salon ● Sep. 9, 2026
The government said in its filing that narrowing fair-use could hurt competition for LLMs because only “the largest technology companies might have the capital necessary to pay licensing fees.”
From The Wall Street Journal ● Sep. 2, 2026
“For sure,” Mapper said, narrowing his eyes at the drawing as if a master attack plan would materialize if he just squinted it into existence.
From "Dactyl Hill Squad" by Daniel José Older
Definitions and idiom definitions from Dictionary.com Unabridged, based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2023
Idioms from The American Heritage® Idioms Dictionary copyright © 2002, 2001, 1995 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company.
