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narrow

Pronunciation: /ˈnæɹəʊ/

The English word “narrow” has 15 meanings listed here.

adjective

  1. Having a small width; not wide; having opposite edges or sides that are close, especially by comparison to length or depth.
  2. Of little extent; very limited; circumscribed.
  3. Restrictive; without flexibility or latitude.
  4. Having a small margin or degree.
  5. Limited as to means; straitened
  6. Parsimonious; niggardly; covetous; selfish.
  7. Scrutinizing in detail; close; accurate; exact.
  8. 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.
  9. Of or supporting only those text characters that can fit into the traditional 8-bit representation.

noun

  1. A narrow passage, especially a contracted part of a stream, lake, or sea; a strait connecting two bodies of water.

verb

  1. To reduce in width or extent; to contract.
  2. To get narrower.
  3. To partially lower one's eyelids in a way usually taken to suggest a defensive, aggressive or penetrating look.
  4. To contract the size of, as a stocking, by taking two stitches into one.
  5. To convert to a data type that cannot hold as many distinct values.

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…

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Definitions are from Wiktionary, extracted by Kaikki.org, and are available under the CC BY-SA 4.0 licence.