narrator

American  

[nar-ay-ter, na-ray-, 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

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Etymology

Origin of narrator

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

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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

Within its looping narrative, the narrator observes the Reader and we in turn observe each of them while shadowy figures from the asylum materialize only to vanish again.

From The Wall Street Journal ● Oct. 30, 2026

At one point I think the narrator becomes Elvis Presley?

From Los Angeles Times ● Oct. 9, 2026

Perhaps the chief problem is the narrator himself.

From The Wall Street Journal ● Oct. 9, 2026

Sally Phillips, actor and narrator of the newly reissued Winnie-the-Pooh audiobooks, launched the campaign earlier by reading to schoolchildren at a phone box library in Chartham, Kent.

From BBC ● Oct. 6, 2026

Wayne played the narrator, who at different points in the musical just sort of appears onstage and interjects commentary.

From "Drama High" by Michael Sokolove

Given Wynette’s proclivity for downtrodden narrators of musical stories, this can get heavy.

From The Wall Street Journal ● Oct. 22, 2026

In Homer’s “Odyssey,” about the hero’s 10-year quest to return home from the Trojan War, the story zigzags among locations, time periods and narrators.

From The Wall Street Journal ● Jul. 20, 2026

If only the sorely miscast Dano had the weight to sell this guided tour of corruption — a role that could have been in the vein of one of Scorsese’s charismatic motormouth narrators.

From Los Angeles Times ● May 15, 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

Maddy, Emma, and several other kids would play the barnyard animals, and most of the rest of the kids who had tried out would be narrators.

From "George" by Alex Gino

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Related Words

• author
• chronicler
• novelist
• writer

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