narrator

American  

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

Or narrater

noun

• narrators
  plural

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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Other Word Forms

Noun Inflected Forms

• narrators
  plural

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

See Examples For:

narrator narrators

Audiobook narrator Alice Sockett, who co-founded the campaign, called it "an existential threat to our entire industry".

From BBC ● Aug. 28, 2026

As the writer and the actor spend time together, and the narrator tries to pry open some small window into M’s psyche, the process of gathering material is constantly being thwarted by M’s casual instructability.

From Los Angeles Times ● Aug. 24, 2026

As the live narrator of the event, he also connects to Valens’ L.A. legacy, as the star recorded his big hits in L.A. label Del-Fi Records’ Silver Lake studio.

From Los Angeles Times ● Aug. 18, 2026

“Underneath an artist’s preoccupations with sex, society, religion, etc.,” the narrator insists, “there is a soul tortured beyond endurance by the lack of tenderness in the world.”

From The Wall Street Journal ● Aug. 17, 2026

Their meetings acquired the flavor of a postmodern literary puzzle: The story rang true even as the narrator seemed entirely unreliable.

From "The Big Short" by Michael Lewis

According to the complaint, Prabhakar had taught the story for nearly a decade without incident and used it in a unit on unsympathetic and unreliable narrators alongside works by Ernest Hemingway and Raymond Carver.

From Salon ● Aug. 2, 2026

“Dear America, if I start investing when I am 16. Nine. Seven. It could change my future. All our futures,” young narrators say.

From MarketWatch ● Feb. 8, 2026

Feeney’s book features multiple narrators, but relativity is not an idea the series bothers to develop.

From Los Angeles Times ● Jan. 8, 2026

Immanuel Wilkins’s alto saxophone and Joel Ross’s vibraphone initially function as dual narrators.

From The Wall Street Journal ● Dec. 25, 2025

Most of the narrators had joined the circle around George, as had a few of the barnyard animals, who were supposed to be clucking and mooing onstage.

From "George" by Alex Gino

Related Words

• author
• chronicler
• novelist
• writer