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
narration, narrative, Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass, narrativize, narrator, narrow, narrow-angle glaucoma, narrowback, narrowband, narrow boat, narrow-bodied
What it endangers is a narrow conception of Russian power, understood through the eyes of its dictatorial leader.
Oliver Stone’s Latest Dictator Suckup|James Kirchick|January 5, 2015|DAILY BEAST
By that time, SantaCon had already spread beyond the narrow confines of a few prankster-explorers.
Before the Bros, SantaCon Was as an Anti-Corporate Protest|David Freedlander|December 12, 2014|DAILY BEAST
It was a windowless, narrow room with a bed in the far left corner.
A Murder in Detroit’s Sexual Underworld|Steve Miller|October 8, 2014|DAILY BEAST
In both cases, Toobin observed, the likely consequences of the rulings are far broader than the “narrow” decisions themselves.
Supreme Court to Gay-Marriage Foes: Get Lost|Jay Michaelson|October 6, 2014|DAILY BEAST
The streets retain a medieval pattern and are narrow, intersected by many alleys.
Imagining Prince Charles as King Makes All of Britain Wish They Could Leave Like Scotland|Clive Irving|September 17, 2014|DAILY BEAST
The English minsters are long, narrow and low in contrast with the greater squareness and height of French contemporary churches.
The Brochure Series of Architectural Illustration, vol. 06, No. 12, December 1900|Various
Crossing the square where the Tacon theatre and circus stand, I wander through the narrow, ill-paved streets of the Cuban capital.
The Pearl of the Antilles, or An Artist in Cuba|Walter Goodman
Narrow at the end of the busy needle each time until but 26 stitches are left on the busy needle.
Handbook of Wool Knitting and Crochet|Anonymous
Here, on a narrow strip of sand, he undressed and leaped into the waves.
Deep Down, a Tale of the Cornish Mines|R.M. Ballantyne
Every march was a succession of steep ascents and then equally steep descents into narrow valleys.
My Experiences in Manipur and the Naga Hills|James Johnstone
British Dictionary definitions for narrow
narrow
/ (ˈnærəʊ) /
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
financedenoting 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)
dialectovercareful 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