narrow

American  

[nar-oh] / ˈnær oʊ /

adjective

• narrower,
  comparative
• narrowest
  superlative

1. of little breadth or width; not broad or wide; not as wide as usual or expected.

   a narrow path.

2. limited in extent or space; affording little room.

   narrow quarters.

3. limited in range or scope.

   a narrow sampling of public opinion.

4. lacking breadth of view or sympathy, as persons, the mind, or ideas.

   a narrow man, knowing only his professional specialty;

   a narrow mind.

   Synonyms:

   small-minded, shallow, limited, biased

5. with little margin to spare; barely adequate or successful; close.

   a narrow escape.

6. careful, thorough, or minute, as a scrutiny, search, or inquiry.

7. limited in amount; small; meager.

   narrow resources.

8. characterized by limited means; straitened; impoverished.

   Since work was scarce, he soon found himself in narrow circumstances.

9. New England. stingy or parsimonious.

10. Phonetics.

    1. (of a vowel) articulated with the tongue laterally constricted, as the ee of beet, the oo of boot, etc.; tense.

    2. (of a phonetic transcription) utilizing a unique symbol for each phoneme and whatever supplementary diacritics are needed to indicate its subphonemic varieties.

11. (of livestock feeds) proportionately rich in protein.

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verb (used without object)

• narrows,
  present (3rd person singular)
• narrowed,
  past participle,  past
• narrowing
  present participle

1. to decrease in width or breadth.

   This is where the road narrows.

verb (used with object)

• narrows,
  present (3rd person singular)
• narrowed,
  past participle,  past
• narrowing
  present participle

1. to make narrower.

2. to limit or restrict (often followed bydown ): to narrow down a contest to three competitors.

   to narrow an area of search;

   to narrow down a contest to three competitors.

3. to make narrow-minded.

   Living in that village has narrowed him.

noun

1. a narrow part, place, or thing.

2. a narrow part of a valley, passage, or road.

3. (used with a singular or plural verb) narrows, a narrow part of a strait, river, ocean current, etc.

4. the Narrows, a narrow strait from upper to lower New York Bay, between Staten Island and Long Island. 2 miles (3.2 kilometers) long; 1 mile (1.6 kilometers) wide.

narrow British  

/ ˈnærəʊ /

adjective

1. small in breadth, esp in comparison to length

2. limited in range or extent

3. limited in outlook; lacking breadth of vision

4. limited in means or resources; meagre

   narrow resources

5. barely adequate or successful (esp in the phrase a narrow escape )

6. painstakingly thorough; minute

   a narrow scrutiny

7. finance denoting an assessment of liquidity as including notes and coin in circulation with the public, banks' till money, and banks' balances Compare broad

   narrow money

8. dialect overcareful with money; parsimonious

9. phonetics

   1. another word for tense 1

   2. relating to or denoting a transcription used to represent phonetic rather than phonemic distinctions

   3. another word for close 1

10. (of agricultural feeds) especially rich in protein

11. informal an escape only just managed

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verb

1. to make or become narrow; limit; restrict

noun

1. a narrow place, esp a pass or strait

narrow Idioms  

More idioms and phrases containing narrow

• straight and narrow

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Other Word Forms

Derived Forms

• narrowness
  noun
• overnarrowness
  noun
• overnarrow
  adjective
• unnarrow
  adjective
• unnarrowed
  adjective
• narrowly
  adverb
• overnarrowly
  adverb
• unnarrowly
  adverb

Inflected Forms

Adjectives

• narrower
  comparative
• narrowest
  superlative

Participles

• narrowing
  present
• narrowed
  past

Conjugated Forms

Present

• narrow
  simple
• narrows
  simple
• have narrowed
  perfect
• has narrowed
  perfect
• am narrowing
  progressive
• are narrowing
  progressive
• is narrowing
  progressive
• have been narrowing
  perfect progressive
• has been narrowing
  perfect progressive

Past

• narrowed
  simple
• had narrowed
  perfect
• was narrowing
  progressive
• were narrowing
  progressive
• had been narrowing
  perfect progressive

Future

• will narrow
  simple
• will have narrowed
  perfect
• will be narrowing
  progressive
• will have been narrowing
  perfect progressive

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Etymology

Origin of narrow

First recorded before 900; Middle English narw(e), nareu(e), narow(e), Old English nearu (inflectional stem nearw- ), cognate with Old Saxon naru “narrow,” Dutch naar “dismal, unpleasant,” Old Saxon naro, naru “narrow, depressing”; possibly akin to German Narbe “scar,” literally, “narrow mark”

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Explanation

Narrow means less wide or to make less wide. When you narrow down your choices, you decrease the number of choices. A road might be too narrow for a car. When used to describe something physical such as a street or hips, narrow simply means not wide. Similarly, with quantities it means not much like when you win your basketball game by a narrow margin. But if you use it to describe an attitude, it has the negative meaning of not wide or open enough. If you're narrow-minded, you don't see the big picture –– sometimes it means you think in narrow stereotypes.

Example Sentences

See Examples For:

narrow narrower narrowest narrows narrowed narrowing

And in two other districts, Black women Democratic candidates are maintaining narrow leads and advancing to runoff elections next month.

From Slate ● Nov. 5, 2026

But a close look at the rest of the Florida races reveals the culprit in Nixon’s narrow loss.

From Salon ● Nov. 5, 2026

The rise in exports was narrow and owed much to higher prices.

From The Wall Street Journal ● Nov. 4, 2026

The race was very tight Wednesday, with votes in favor holding a narrow edge.

From Los Angeles Times ● Nov. 4, 2026

There was only a narrow space from the door to the center of the room, where the cradle lay, and then a small clearing behind that for the window.

From "Rump: The (Fairly) True Story of Rumpelstilskin" by Liesl Shurtliff

Still, the results in the state’s Democratic primary were far narrower than the polls showed, with El-Sayed besting Stevens by only 1%, or 14,893 votes.

From Salon ● Nov. 3, 2026

Iotova won 35 percent of the vote in the first round last week, with Gyurov on 32 percent -- a much narrower gap than the 20-point lead for Iotova predicted by opinion polls.

From Barron's ● Nov. 1, 2026

By the period of our new study, focus had shifted to the narrower, more defensible southern ridge.

From Science Daily ● Oct. 31, 2026

The worker-to-beneficiary ratio was 2.7 to 1 in 2023, according to Pew Research Center, far narrower than in 1965, when there were four times as many workers as there were beneficiaries.

From MarketWatch ● Oct. 29, 2026

Flames light the rocky hillside on our right, making the ledge even narrower.

From "Paradise on Fire" by Jewell Parker Rhodes

The spread between the two-year and 10-year yields reached its narrowest level since March 2025 on Thursday.

From The Wall Street Journal ● Sep. 18, 2026

The five-year USD/JPY cross-currency basis was recently about negative-30 basis points, the narrowest level since the series began in 2021.

From MarketWatch ● Jul. 23, 2026

Sitting on Iran's southern coast, close to the narrowest point of the strait, it is home to Iran's Navy and the naval arm of the IRGC.

From BBC ● Jul. 2, 2026

It’s important to appreciate that the students pressed for the narrowest, most modest ruling possible.

From Slate ● Jun. 30, 2026

Ma sewed hats for Mary and Laura of the finest, narrowest braid.

From "Little House in the Big Woods" by Laura Ingalls Wilder

Its movements resembled the way the iris of the human eye changes shape as the pupil expands or narrows.

From Science Daily ● Oct. 23, 2026

Once the gap narrows this much between long- and short-end yields, it rarely stays there, he said.

From MarketWatch ● Sep. 22, 2026

Kathryn Bigelow’s film narrows the Iraq War down to the nerve-shredding work of an explosives-disposal unit, with Renner’s Staff Sgt.

From Los Angeles Times ● Sep. 11, 2026

However, the gap narrows at Advanced Higher level with a 1.2 percentage point difference between those with and without ASN.

From BBC ● Aug. 4, 2026

Lita narrows her eyes into a storytelling threat.

From "The Last Cuentista" by Donna Barba Higuera

This combined outcome included death from any cause, heart attacks, strokes, and procedures to restore blood flow through narrowed or blocked arteries.

From Science Daily ● Nov. 6, 2026

Denmark’s Pandora narrowed its guidance for the current year toward the upper end of the range, as it heads into the crucial festive shopping season.

From The Wall Street Journal ● Nov. 4, 2026

Continental narrowed its sales outlook for the year, though revenue slumped in the third quarter.

From The Wall Street Journal ● Nov. 4, 2026

When the wandering pooch finally narrowed his territory, Packer set up a humane trap and spent several days and nights nearby, waiting for Anchovy Jack to take the bait.

From Los Angeles Times ● Nov. 3, 2026

A few of them stared at us with narrowed eyes as we passed, but none of them stopped us.

From "Code Name Kingfisher" by Liz Kessler

Prosecutors have revised the charges against him, narrowing one count to focus solely on damage from the Lachman fire, which began on Jan. 1, 2025.

From Los Angeles Times ● Nov. 4, 2026

"When you factor in key physical processes and calibrate against historical observations, you gain a reliable pathway for narrowing uncertainty in projections," Poinelli said.

From Science Daily ● Oct. 28, 2026

Schools like Da Vinci are where mandated personal-finance education can have the biggest impact in narrowing socioeconomic and racial wealth gaps, experts say.

From MarketWatch ● Oct. 26, 2026

These stable arrangements serve as molecular checkpoints, narrowing the enormous number of possible assembly routes into a much smaller set of successful pathways.

From Science Daily ● Oct. 22, 2026

“I was just going to say to have fun at Claire’s,” I said, narrowing my eyes at her.

From "Keep It Together, Keiko Carter" by Debbi Michiko Florence

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