narrow

American  

[nar-oh] / ˈnær oʊ /

adjective

narrower, narrowest

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.

---

verb (used without object)

1. to decrease in width or breadth.

   This is where the road narrows.

verb (used with object)

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

---

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

---

Other Word Forms

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

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”

Example Sentences

Reporting indicates that the only exit available from Le Constellation’s basement space was a narrow door at the top of a single staircase.

From The Wall Street Journal

They qualified from their group in second place behind Egypt, claiming narrow and unconvincing wins against Angola and Zimbabwe either side of a defeat against the Pharaohs.

From Barron's

However, the VAR official disagreed, ruling that Wirtz was played onside by the narrowest of the margins, even though his foot seemed in an offside position.

From Barron's

“The regime’s options have been narrowed very significantly.”

From The Wall Street Journal

The mother of two has idiopathic laryngotracheal stenosis, a rare condition that affects one in 500,000 women and causes abnormal narrowing of the voice box and windpipe.

From BBC

Related Words

• cramped
• definite
• limited
• precarious
• precise
• slender
• slim
• small
• thin
• tight