narrator

American  

[nar-ey-ter, na-rey‑, nar-uh‑] / ˈnær eɪ tər, næˈreɪ‑, ˈnær ə‑ /

Or narrater

noun

1. a person who gives an account or tells the story of events, experiences, etc.

2. a person who adds spoken commentary to a film, television program, slide show, etc.

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narrator British  

/ nəˈreɪtə /

noun

1. a person who tells a story or gives an account of something

2. a person who speaks in accompaniment of a film, television programme, etc

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narrator Cultural  

1. A person who tells a story; in literature, the voice that an author takes on to tell a story. This voice can have a personality quite different from the author's. For example, in his story “The Tell-Tale Heart,” Edgar Allan Poe makes his narrator a raving lunatic.

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Etymology

Origin of narrator

First recorded in 1610–20; from Latin narrātor “narrator, historian” see narrate ( def. ), -or ² ( def. )

Explanation

A narrator is the storyteller in a book or movie. One of the most famous literary narrators is Herman Melville's Ishmael, who tells the story of Moby Dick. The narrator is the person who tells the story — in other words, she narrates it. In a fictional work, the narrator is a character who relays the story from her own perspective, which is different from the writer. If you don't trust the narrator's version of the story, you may have encountered an "unreliable narrator." The Latin root is narrare, "to tell or relate," or literally "to make acquainted with," from gnarus, "knowing."

Example Sentences

“Nothing goes away,” the omniscient narrator observes of a ruined cottage that Tomás rebuilds.

From The Wall Street Journal • May 29, 2026

Now, Matarazzo is set to play Mark, Rent's narrator and a documentary filmmaker.

From BBC • May 19, 2026

These secret sorrows bring us into an uncomfortable intimacy with the narrator.

From The Wall Street Journal • May 14, 2026

It follows the narrator and her 12-year-old daughter as they travel to Sicily, visiting the site where the narrator’s grandmother, an archaeologist, worked years before.

From Los Angeles Times • May 12, 2026

“There was once, there was a man,” said Pomp, delighted narrator of horrors, “there was a man so afraid for dying, he make a deal with Death himself. A true story.”

From "The Astonishing Life of Octavian Nothing, Traitor to the Nation, Volume II: The Kingdom on the Waves" by M.T. Anderson

Related Words

• author
• chronicler
• novelist
• writer