narrow
Plural: narrows
Noun
- a narrow strait connecting two bodies of water
- A narrow passage, especially a contracted part of a stream, lake, or sea; a strait connecting two bodies of water.
Verb
Verb Forms: narrowed, narrowing, narrows
- To become or make less wide; to constrict.
- make or become more narrow or restricted
- "The selection was narrowed"
- "The road narrowed"
- define clearly
- "I cannot narrow down the rules for this game"
- become more focus on an area of activity or field of study
- become tight or as if tight
- To reduce in width or extent; to contract.
- To get narrower.
- To partially lower one's eyelids in a way usually taken to suggest a defensive, aggressive or penetrating look.
- To contract the size of, as a stocking, by taking two stitches into one.
- To convert to a data type that cannot hold as many distinct values.
Adjective
- Of small width in relation to length; restricted.
- not wide
- "a narrow bridge"
- "a narrow line across the page"
- lacking tolerance or flexibility or breadth of view
- "a brilliant but narrow-minded judge"
- "narrow opinions"
- very limited in degree
- "won by a narrow margin"
- "a narrow escape"
Adjective Satellite
- limited in size or scope
- "the narrow sense of a word"
- characterized by painstaking care and detailed examination
- "a narrow scrutiny"
Adj
- Having a small width; not wide; having opposite edges or sides that are close, especially by comparison to length or depth.
- Of little extent; very limited; circumscribed.
- Restrictive; without flexibility or latitude.
- Contracted; of limited scope; bigoted
- Having a small margin or degree.
- Limited as to means; straitened
- Parsimonious; niggardly; covetous; selfish.
- Scrutinizing in detail; close; accurate; exact.
- Formed (as a vowel) by a close position of some part of the tongue in relation to the palate; or (according to Bell) by a tense condition of the pharynx; distinguished from wide.
- Of or supporting only those text characters that can fit into the traditional 8-bit representation.
Examples
- a narrow escape
- a narrow hallway
- a narrow interpretation
- a narrow mind
- He stepped in front of me, narrowing his eyes to slits.
- He tried to narrow the opponent’s options by blocking key squares.
- narrow circumstances
- narrow views
- She wagged her finger in his face, and her eyes narrowed.
- The margin of victory was narrow, making every point crucial in the Words With Friends game.
- the narrows of New York harbor
- The Republicans won by a narrow majority.
- The road narrows.
- to narrow an int variable to a short variable
- We need to narrow the search.
Origin / Etymology
From Middle English narow, narowe, narewe, narwe, naru, from Old English nearu (“narrow, strait, confined, constricted, not spacious, limited, petty; limited, poor, restricted; oppressive, causing anxiety (of that which restricts free action of body or mind), causing or accompanied by difficulty, hardship, oppressive; oppressed, not having free action; strict, severe”), from Proto-West Germanic *naru, from Proto-Germanic *narwaz (“constricted, narrow”), from Proto-Indo-European *(s)ner- (“to turn, bend, twist, constrict”).
Cognate with Scots naro, narow, narrow (“narrow”), North Frisian naar, noar, noor (“narrow”), Saterland Frisian noar (“bleak, dismal, meager, ghastly, unwell”), Saterland Frisian Naarwe (“scar”), West Frisian near (“narrow”), Dutch naar (“dismal, bleak, ill, sick”), Low German naar (“dismal, ghastly”), German Nehrung (“spit, narrow peninsula”), Norwegian norve (“a clip, staple”), Icelandic njörva- (“narrow-”, in compounds).
Synonyms
constrict, constringe, contract, minute, nail down, narrow down, narrow-minded, peg down, pin down, specialise, specialize, specify, close, filamentous, fine, narrow, slender, slim, strait, taper, thin, tight
Scrabble Score: 9
narrow: valid Scrabble (US) TWL Wordnarrow: valid Scrabble Word in Merriam-Webster MW Dictionary
narrow: valid Scrabble Word in International Collins CSW Dictionary