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Narrow   /nˈɛroʊ/  /nˈæroʊ/   Listen
adjective
Narrow  adj.  (compar. narrower; superl. narrowest)  
1.
Of little breadth; not wide or broad; having little distance from side to side; as, a narrow board; a narrow street; a narrow hem. "Hath passed in safety through the narrow seas."
2.
Of little extent; very limited; circumscribed. "The Jews were but a small nation, and confined to a narrow compass in the world."
3.
Having but a little margin; having barely sufficient space, time, or number, etc.; close; near (5); with special reference to some peril or misfortune; as, a narrow shot; a narrow escape; a narrow miss; a narrow majority.
4.
Limited as to means; straitened; pinching; as, narrow circumstances.
5.
Contracted; of limited scope; illiberal; bigoted; as, a narrow mind; narrow views. "A narrow understanding."
6.
Parsimonious; niggardly; covetous; selfish. "A very narrow and stinted charity."
7.
Scrutinizing in detail; close; accurate; exact. "But first with narrow search I must walk round This garden, and no corner leave unspied."
8.
(Phon.) 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. Note: Narrow is not unfrequently prefixed to words, especially to participles and adjectives, forming compounds of obvious signification; as, narrow-bordered, narrow-brimmed, narrow-breasted, narrow-edged, narrow-faced, narrow-headed, narrow-leaved, narrow-pointed, narrow-souled, narrow-sphered, etc.
Narrow gauge. (Railroad) See Note under Gauge, n., 6.


verb
Narrow  v. t.  (past & past part. narrowed; pres. part. narrowing)  
1.
To lessen the breadth of; to contract; to draw into a smaller compass; to reduce the width or extent of.
2.
To contract the reach or sphere of; to make less liberal or more selfish; to limit; to confine; to restrict; as, to narrow one's views or knowledge; to narrow a question in discussion. "Our knowledge is much more narrowed if we confine ourselves to our own solitary reasonings."
3.
(Knitting) To contract the size of, as a stocking, by taking two stitches into one.


Narrow  v. i.  
1.
To become less broad; to contract; to become narrower; as, the sea narrows into a strait.
2.
(Man.) Not to step out enough to the one hand or the other; as, a horse narrows.
3.
(Knitting) To contract the size of a stocking or other knit article, by taking two stitches into one.


noun
Narrow  n.  (pl. narrows)  A narrow passage; esp., a contracted part of a stream, lake, or sea; a strait connecting two bodies of water; usually in the plural; as, The Narrows of New York harbor. "Near the island lay on one side the jaws of a dangerous narrow."





Collaborative International Dictionary of English 0.48


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"Narrow" Quotes from Famous Books



... bay. All three knew the desperate chance they were taking, and they spoke little as they made their way out into the Straits. Their craft was strange to them, and the positions they were forced to occupy soon brought on cramped muscles. The bidarka is a frail, narrow framework over which is stretched walrus skin, and it is so fashioned that the crew sits, one behind the other, in circular openings with legs straight out in front. To keep themselves dry each man had donned a native water garment—a loose, ...
— The Silver Horde • Rex Beach
... piece of rough moorland, covered with heather, patches of bracken, and coarse grass. A few yards to the right, it sank in a steep descent. Such was the disposition of the ground for some distance along the road—on one side the hill, on the other a narrow level, and abrupt descent. ...
— What's Mine's Mine • George MacDonald
... obtains from the fibres of the aloe, with narrow strips of skin, closely woven, he composes a lasso more than fifty feet long; he tries it; he exercises it now against a tuft of leaves detached from a bush, now against some projecting rock; afterwards he tries it upon Marimonda, ...
— The Solitary of Juan Fernandez, or The Real Robinson Crusoe • Joseph Xavier Saintine
... An event had recently occurred, however, which somewhat damped the pleasure of their reception. A young man had been killed by a tiger. The brute had leaped upon him while he and a party of lads were traversing a narrow path through the jungle, and had killed him with one blow of its paw. The other youths courageously rushed at the beast with their spears and axes, and, driving it off, carried the ...
— Blown to Bits - or, The Lonely Man of Rakata • Robert Michael Ballantyne
... elephant. Now it was Ra'ad Shah's wont, when he found himself overmatched by any brave, to mount an elephant, taking with him an implement called the lasso,[FN58] which was in the shape of a net, wide at base and narrow at top with a running cord of silk passed through rings along its edges. With this he would attack horsemen and casting the meshes over them, draw the running noose and drag the rider off his horse ...
— The Book of the Thousand Nights and a Night, Volume 7 • Richard F. Burton


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