Word.ws English Dictionary

narrow-gauge

narrow-gauge adjective: relating to narrow gauge or having a narrow gauge.

Adjective

narrow-gauge (not comparable)

  1. Relating to narrow gauge or having a narrow gauge.
    • On once more we swung, bumping uneasily along in the antique narrow-gauge coach, with gloomy woods and gathering night outside, shouts and songs (and quacks) inside—this was not at all the sort of train ordained by the logical strategists in Paris—then grinding to a stop at a mysterious halt which...1961 November, H. G. Ellison, P. G. Barlow, “Journey through France: Part One”, in Trains Illustrated, page 668
  2. Limited or petty.
    • It seems to the editors that this is somehow curiously reminiscent of Whorf's defense of Native American languages and cultures in the face of narrow-gauge views on language and culture at the time, without going so far as to take a strict Sapir-Whorfian stance that might posit unbridgeable gaps in...2013, Luc van Doorslaer, Peter Flynn, Eurocentrism in Translation Studies, →ISBN, page 6

Questions about narrow-gauge

What does narrow-gauge mean?
Narrow-gauge means relating to narrow gauge or having a narrow gauge.
What part of speech is narrow-gauge?
Narrow-gauge is an adjective.

Words near narrow-gauge in the dictionary

  1. narrow-bellied seahorse
  2. narrow-bellied seahorses
  3. narrow-cut
  4. narrow-fisted
  5. narrow-gage
  6. narrow-gauge
  7. narrow-gutted
  8. narrow-leaf ash
  9. narrow-leaved maire
  10. narrow-leaved mallee
  11. narrow-leaved mallees

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: narrow-gauge (page history and authors). Text available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 license. Word.ws reformatted the entry and added links. Wiktionary data of 2026-09-02.

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