narrow

[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.
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.
straitened; impoverished:
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.
    Compare lax (def 7).
  2. (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).
11.
(of livestock feeds) proportionately rich in protein.
verb (used without object)
12.
to decrease in width or breadth:
This is where the road narrows.
verb (used with object)
13.
to make narrower.
14.
to limit or restrict (often followed by down):
to narrow an area of search; to narrow down a contest to three competitors.
15.
to make narrow-minded:
Living in that village has narrowed him.
noun
16.
a narrow part, place, or thing.
17.
a narrow part of a valley, passage, or road.
18.
narrows, (used with a singular or plural verb) a narrow part of a strait, river, ocean current, etc.
19.
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
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 forms
narrowly, adverb
narrowness, noun
overnarrow, adjective
overnarrowly, adverb
overnarrowness, noun
unnarrow, adjective
unnarrowly, adverb
unnarrowed, adjective
Synonyms
4. biased, limited, shallow, small-minded.
Examples from the web for narrow
  • To show you as a narrow minded ideologue without independent thought, yes.
  • Each satellite has a small footprint, so its bandwidth can be used only in the narrow geographical area beneath it.
  • narrow-minded nationalism leads to an ignorant, extremist, and violent world view.
  • Mongols were narrow-waisted and small-footed, with big heads.
  • It does have narrow surface features, but they're too small to be seen at this resolution.
  • It might be too narrow a topic for a full course, they said.
  • But the real problem with his broadside is that it is too narrow.
  • Grows in large tufts with flowers in narrow clusters on stiff stalks, flower stalks twice the height of the leaves.
  • In warm-climate-adapted populations, inhalations are not directed toward the narrow upper part of the nasal cavity for warming.
  • Thus this is a narrow look, but indeed science can only reveal matter in one narrow discovery at a time.
British Dictionary definitions for narrow

narrow

/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: narrow money Compare broad (sense 14)
8.
(dialect) overcareful with money; parsimonious
9.
(phonetics)
  1. another word for tense1 (sense 4)
  2. relating to or denoting a transcription used to represent phonetic rather than phonemic distinctions
  3. another word for close1 (sense 21)
10.
(of agricultural feeds) especially rich in protein
11.
(informal) narrow squeak, an escape only just managed
verb
12.
to make or become narrow; limit; restrict
noun
13.
a narrow place, esp a pass or strait
See also narrows
Derived Forms
narrowly, adverb
narrowness, noun
Word Origin
Old English nearu; related to Old Saxon naru
Word Origin and History for 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.

v.

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

n.

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 narrow

narrow

In addition to the idiom beginning with narrow , see straight and narrow