Meaning & use
narrow
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Meanings
adjectivecomparable
Measuring only a short distance from one side to the other, especially when compared with the length.
Grammar: Can take -er and -est: a narrower street, the narrowest part.
Patterns
- narrow street
- a narrow strip of something
We walked single file along the narrow path.
The shop sits in a narrow building squeezed between two banks.
Her shoulders were too narrow for the borrowed coat.
adjectivebefore a noun
Only just achieved or avoided, with very little to spare.
Grammar: Used before nouns such as win, escape or margin: a narrow win.
Patterns
- a narrow escape
- a narrow margin
- a narrow victory
The home team had a narrow win in the final minute.
He had a narrow escape when the branch fell beside him.
She was elected by a narrow margin.
adjectivecomparabledisapproving
Limited in range, ideas or interests, and unwilling to consider other views.
Grammar: Often used critically: a narrow outlook, narrow-minded.
Patterns
- a narrow view of something
- in the narrow sense
Judging a school only by test scores is a narrow view of education.
In the narrowest sense, the law was not broken.
The course offers a broad education, not a narrow training.
verbtransitive or intransitive
To become less wide, or to make something less wide or less broad in scope.
Grammar: With an object it means to reduce: narrow the search. Without one it means to become smaller: the road narrows.
Patterns
- narrow something down
- narrow to something
- narrow the gap
The river narrows as it enters the gorge.
Police have narrowed the search to two streets.
The new policy aims to narrow the gap between rich and poor.
Word forms
| comparative | narrower |
|---|---|
| superlative | narrowest |
| third person singular | narrows |
| past tense | narrowed |
| past participle | narrowed |
| -ing form | narrowing |
Common combinations
- narrow escape
- The cyclist had a narrow escape at the junction.
- narrow margin
- They lost by a narrow margin of two votes.
- narrow down
- Let us narrow down the list to five candidates.
- narrow the gap
- Training is helping us narrow the gap with the leaders.
- narrow focus
- The study has a narrow focus on teenage sleep.
Synonyms and how they differ
- slim
- Slim describes something thin in an attractive or desirable way, while narrow is neutral and mostly about width.
- tight
- Tight stresses that there is little space to move, while narrow only describes the measurement.
- limited
- Limited fits ideas and ranges, but it lacks the picture of width that narrow brings.
- close
- In a sense like a close win, close is the everyday choice and narrow is a bit more formal.
Opposites
Word family
- narrowly adverb
- by only a small amount, as in narrowly missed
- narrowness noun
- the quality of having little width or range
- narrow-minded adjective
- unwilling to accept different ideas
- narrowing noun
- a place or process where something becomes narrower
Commonly confused: narrow or thin?
narrow vs thin
Thin refers to thickness between two surfaces, while narrow refers to width across.
Practice
The detectives hope to ____ the list of suspects before the weekend.
Choose one answer.
Narrow down is the fixed phrasal verb for reducing a larger group of choices. The other options are not natural combinations.
Make it your own
Write a sentence using “narrow”, then check it and compare it with the examples above.