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

However, the show's narrator then confirmed her exit, telling viewers: "Alannah has left Casa Amor."

From BBC ● Jun. 26, 2026

David, the American narrator of this groundbreaking novel by James Baldwin, has come to Paris hoping to elude his homosexuality.

From The Wall Street Journal ● Jun. 10, 2026

Zendaya could receive a third Emmy, or at least a nomination, for playing Rue, the reliably chaotic protagonist and narrator of HBO’s “Euphoria.”

From Los Angeles Times ● Jun. 10, 2026

In his short story “Intimacy,” Raymond Carver uses the metaphor of “dead leaves” to describe the unresolved wounds between the narrator and his ex-wife.

From Los Angeles Times ● Jun. 3, 2026

He speaks for almost two minutes as the story’s narrator.

From "Spooked!" by Gail Jarrow

Likewise, Epstein saw #MeToo as a problem to be neutralized because the success of any social movement in which women were treated as reliable narrators of their own exploitation would impede his own racket.”

From Salon ● May 23, 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

Instead of omniscient narrators, they deployed free indirect speech to reveal characters’ innermost thoughts.

From The Wall Street Journal ● Jan. 30, 2026

I’d only seen the trailer for “The Girlfriend” at the time of the shoot but knew I wanted something that contained the idea of untrustworthy narrators that seemed to be threaded throughout.

From Los Angeles Times ● Dec. 23, 2025

Dimple thought, in a documentary narrators deep, polished voice.

From "When Dimple Met Rishi" by Sandhya Menon

Related Words

• author
• chronicler
• novelist
• writer