narrow

American  

[nar-oh] / ˈnær oʊ /

adjective

• narrower,
  comparative
• narrowest
  superlative

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)

• narrows,
  present (3rd person singular)
• narrowed,
  past participle,  past
• narrowing
  present participle

1. to decrease in width or breadth.

   This is where the road narrows.

verb (used with object)

• narrows,
  present (3rd person singular)
• narrowed,
  past participle,  past
• narrowing
  present participle

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

Derived Forms

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

Inflected Forms

Adjectives

• narrower
  comparative
• narrowest
  superlative

Participles

• narrowing
  present
• narrowed
  past

Conjugated Forms

Present

• narrow
  simple
• narrows
  simple
• have narrowed
  perfect
• has narrowed
  perfect
• am narrowing
  progressive
• are narrowing
  progressive
• is narrowing
  progressive
• have been narrowing
  perfect progressive
• has been narrowing
  perfect progressive

Past

• narrowed
  simple
• had narrowed
  perfect
• was narrowing
  progressive
• were narrowing
  progressive
• had been narrowing
  perfect progressive

Future

• will narrow
  simple
• will have narrowed
  perfect
• will be narrowing
  progressive
• will have been narrowing
  perfect progressive

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.

Example Sentences

See Examples For:

narrow narrower narrowest narrows narrowed narrowing

Blakespear’s legislation would narrow those exemptions and exclude certain processing and manufacturing uses.

From Los Angeles Times ● Aug. 26, 2026

That wouldn’t undo Warsh’s case for reform, but it could narrow it.

From The Wall Street Journal ● Aug. 26, 2026

Taken at face value, the narrow scope of the new tariffs “limits direct and near-term costs,” a new report by Moody’s Ratings concluded.

From MarketWatch ● Aug. 25, 2026

The newly identified lizard appears to occupy only a narrow zone of high-altitude forest.

From Science Daily ● Aug. 24, 2026

Phineas uses the narrow end of his iron to carefully press the ropelike fuse down into the powder.

From "Phineas Gage" by John Fleischman

Your main priority now should be planning for the surviving spouse who could face fewer standard deduction, narrower tax brackets and even higher Medicare premiums.

From MarketWatch ● Aug. 25, 2026

But the vaccine could instead prove effective in a much narrower set of tumors.

From The Wall Street Journal ● Aug. 23, 2026

The stripes are narrower and there are interwoven diagonal lines, but this is still very definitely a Real Betis shirt - one of the most recognisable designs in European football.

From BBC ● Aug. 9, 2026

Blanche is already guaranteed a narrower margin, with Sen. Susan Collins of Maine announcing she will vote to reject his confirmation, and with Sen. Mitch McConnell absent for health reasons.

From Los Angeles Times ● Aug. 6, 2026

It was slightly narrower than the first, but just as high.

From "Redwall" by Brian Jacques

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

It’s important to appreciate that the students pressed for the narrowest, most modest ruling possible.

From Slate ● Jun. 30, 2026

"It tends to be in the narrowest area of the channel between Deganwy and the beacons."

From BBC ● Jun. 12, 2026

With imports from the U.S. declining 1.2% for the month, Canada’s goods-trade surplus with its neighbor widened to C$7.07 billion from a C$2.86 billion in February, the narrowest since May 2020.

From The Wall Street Journal ● May 5, 2026

There was the narrowest space behind the dumpster.

From "Boy 2.0" by Tracey Baptiste

Plaque narrows blood vessels and makes them less flexible, increasing the strain on the cardiovascular system.

From Science Daily ● Aug. 1, 2026

But "the AI buildout is climbing onto a steeper section of track just as the gap between capital spending and internal cash generation narrows", he warned.

From Barron's ● Jul. 28, 2026

The bill also narrows the list of electronic communications service providers who provide data access to exclude those related to “places of worship, educational institutions . . . and entertainment venues.”

From The Wall Street Journal ● Jun. 8, 2026

The road narrows next to the building which the council said meant complete closure was necessary for some of the work.

From BBC ● Jun. 3, 2026

When the tunnel we’re in narrows to a locked grate, he plucks two pins from my hair and picks the lock in seconds.

From "An Ember in the Ashes" by Sabaa Tahir

This left us with a list of 22 stocks, which we narrowed to 12 companies with majority buy or equivalent ratings among analysts polled by LSEG.

From MarketWatch ● Aug. 26, 2026

Kohl’s also narrowed its sales guidance, now expecting revenue to be flat to down 1.5%, compared with the flat to 2% decline it previously projected.

From The Wall Street Journal ● Aug. 26, 2026

Now that we have fallen straight through the looking glass of the internet, that gap has narrowed to the extent that we are having far greater difficulty discerning reality from its uncanny simulations.

From Los Angeles Times ● Aug. 24, 2026

Girls continue to outperform boys, but the gap between boys' and girls' pass rates across all three nations has narrowed again to its lowest on record.

From BBC ● Aug. 20, 2026

He was certain that he was turning red and that it wasn’t helping his case at all, because Aunt Hila’s eyes narrowed.

From "Night Owls" by A.R. Vishny

Keeping such a sparse, specified operation going means narrowing budgets wherever possible, especially when it comes to managing Canopy’s investments and data.

From Slate ● Aug. 18, 2026

Achieving that, Tiwari says, requires redesigning streets by narrowing traffic lanes, altering road surfaces and introducing other traffic-calming measures.

From BBC ● Aug. 6, 2026

Blanche had previously said the fund would not proceed, but Cornyn and Tillis demanded a formal written commitment preventing its revival and language narrowing the tax protections.

From Barron's ● Aug. 3, 2026

Bausch + Lomb lifted its full-year targets after narrowing its second-quarter loss as its core segments drove revenue higher.

From The Wall Street Journal ● Jul. 29, 2026

Clyde had the look of a cat narrowing in on his prey.

From "Book Scavenger" by Jennifer Chambliss Bertman

Related Words

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