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” narrate ( def. ), -or ² ( def. )

Example Sentences

The narrator of “10:04” dreams of a book that, “like a poem, is neither fiction nor nonfiction, but a flickering between them.”

From The Wall Street Journal • Mar. 31, 2026

In the opening episode, the narrator travels to Rhode Island to interview Thomas for a magazine article—a big deal, because Thomas is 90 and unlikely to consent to this kind of personal intrusion again.

From The Wall Street Journal • Mar. 31, 2026

John Coltrane, Cab Calloway, Bill Evans, Nina Simone are favorite artists, and the narrator can tell his father’s mood simply by the record he’s decided to play.

From Los Angeles Times • Mar. 12, 2026

The glory and riches available, as narrator Liev Schreiber tells us, are not quite those of the NFL, MLB or NBA.

From The Wall Street Journal • Mar. 12, 2026

In the Epic of Gilgamesh, the narrator states that Gilgamesh was two-thirds god and one-third man.

From "Zero: The Biography of a Dangerous Idea" by Charles Seife

Related Words

• author
• chronicler
• novelist
• writer