narrow

[nar-oh]

SEE MORE SYNONYMS FOR narrow ON THESAURUS.COM

adjective, nar·row·er, nar·row·est.

of little breadth or width; not broad or wide; not as wide as usual or expected: a narrow path.

limited in extent or space; affording little room: narrow quarters.

limited in range or scope: a narrow sampling of public opinion.

lacking breadth of view or sympathy, as persons, the mind, or ideas: a narrow man, knowing only his professional specialty; a narrow mind.

with little margin to spare; barely adequate or successful; close: a narrow escape.

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

limited in amount; small; meager: narrow resources.

straitened; impoverished: narrow circumstances.

New England. stingy or parsimonious.

Phonetics.

(of a vowel) articulated with the tongue laterally constricted, as the ee of beet, the oo of boot, etc.; tense.Compare lax(def 7).
(of a phonetic transcription) utilizing a unique symbol for each phoneme and whatever supplementary diacritics are needed to indicate its subphonemic varieties.Compare broad(def 14).

(of livestock feeds) proportionately rich in protein.

verb (used without object)

to decrease in width or breadth: This is where the road narrows.

verb (used with object)

to make narrower.

to limit or restrict (often followed by down): to narrow an area of search; to narrow down a contest to three competitors.

to make narrow-minded: Living in that village has narrowed him.

noun

a narrow part, place, or thing.

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

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

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

Origin of narrow

before 900; Middle English; Old English nearu; cognate with Old Saxon naru narrow, Dutch naar unpleasant; akin to German Narbe scar, literally, narrow mark

Related formsnar·row·ly, adverbnar·row·ness, nouno·ver·nar·row, adjectiveo·ver·nar·row·ly, adverbo·ver·nar·row·ness, nounun·nar·row, adjectiveun·nar·row·ly, adverbun·nar·rowed, adjective

Synonyms for narrow

SEE MORE SYNONYMS FOR narrow ON THESAURUS.COM

4. biased, limited, shallow, small-minded.

Dictionary.com Unabridged Based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2019

Related Words for narrowness

restriction, barrier, confinement, thinness, impediment, intolerance, bigotry, bias, prejudice, insularity

Examples from the Web for narrowness

Contemporary Examples of narrowness

If there is a flaw to be found here it is only one of narrowness; all of these narrators are American men and most are Marines.
The Profanity of War: Phil Klay’s “Redeployment”
Brian Castner
March 1, 2014

Historical Examples of narrowness

Kate's nature was limited; part of her graceful equipoise was narrowness.
Malbone
Thomas Wentworth Higginson
To this narrowness Burns, with all his faults of style, was a stranger.
The Letters of Robert Burns
Robert Burns
It is here that the narrowness of the mind of woman is revealed in all its meanness.
The Sexual Question
August Forel
The narrowness serves to concentrate the strength and accelerate the work.
Mountain Meditations
L. Lind-af-Hageby
More than two could not attack him at once by virtue of the narrowness of the passage.
The Tavern Knight
Rafael Sabatini

British Dictionary definitions for narrowness

narrow

adjective

small in breadth, esp in comparison to length

limited in range or extent

limited in outlook; lacking breadth of vision

limited in means or resources; meagrenarrow resources

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

painstakingly thorough; minutea narrow scrutiny

finance denoting an assessment of liquidity as including notes and coin in circulation with the public, banks' till money, and banks' balancesnarrow money Compare broad (def. 14)

dialect overcareful with money; parsimonious

phonetics

another word for tense 1 (def. 4)
relating to or denoting a transcription used to represent phonetic rather than phonemic distinctions
another word for close 1 (def. 21)

(of agricultural feeds) especially rich in protein

narrow squeak informal an escape only just managed

verb

to make or become narrow; limit; restrict

noun

a narrow place, esp a pass or strait

Word Origin for narrow

Old English nearu; related to Old Saxon naru

Collins English Dictionary - Complete & Unabridged 2012 Digital Edition © William Collins Sons & Co. Ltd. 1979, 1986 © HarperCollins Publishers 1998, 2000, 2003, 2005, 2006, 2007, 2009, 2012

Word Origin and History for narrowness

narrow

adj.

Old English nearu "narrow, constricted, limited; petty; causing difficulty, oppressive; strict, severe," from West Germanic *narwaz "narrowness" (cf. Frisian nar, Old Saxon naru, Middle Dutch nare, Dutch naar); not found in other Germanic languages and of unknown origin. The narrow seas (c.1400) were the waters between Great Britain and the continent and Ireland. Related: Narrowness.

narrow

Old English nearwian "to force in, cramp, confine; become smaller, shrink;" see narrow (adj.). Related: Narrowed; narrowing.

narrow

c.1200, nearewe "narrow part, place, or thing," from narrow (adj.). Old English nearu (n.) meant "danger, distress, difficulty," also "prison, hiding place."

Idioms and Phrases with narrowness

narrow

In addition to the idiom beginning with narrow

narrow escape

, see

straight and narrow