Word.ws English Dictionary

How to use narrow in a sentence

40 example sentences · adjective, noun, verb

Narrow means having a small width; not wide; having opposite edges or sides that are close, especially by comparison to length or depth. Example: “The Republicans won by a narrow majority.”

Examples of narrow by meaning

adjectiveHaving a small width; not wide; having opposite edges or sides that are close, especially by comparison to length or...

  • a narrow hallway
  • And indeed she had the narrow eyes and the high cheekbone of that creature, and as nearly the sinuosity as is compatible with human symmetry.1921, Ben Travers, chapter 1, in A Cuckoo in the Nest, Garden City, N.Y.: Doubleday, Page & Company, published 1925, →OCLC
  • Their bases were on a level with the pavement outside, a narrow way which was several feet lower than the road behind the house.1963, Margery Allingham, chapter 14, in The China Governess: A Mystery, London: Chatto & Windus, →OCLC

adjectiveRestrictive; without flexibility or latitude.

  • a narrow interpretation

adjectiveHaving a small margin or degree.

  • a narrow escape
  • The Republicans won by a narrow majority.
  • Although we lost the election by the narrowest of margins, the people of Oregon heard a great deal about education, and particularly about how "look-say" reading instruction was hardshipping Oregon school children.1970, Reading Reform Foundation, The Annual Reading Reform Foundation Conference, page 47

adjectiveOf or supporting only those text characters that can fit into the traditional 8-bit representation.

  • a narrow character; a narrow stream

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

  • the narrows of New York harbor

verbTo reduce in width or extent; to contract.

  • We need to narrow the search.

verbTo get narrower.

  • The road narrows.

verbTo partially lower one's eyelids in a way usually taken to suggest a defensive, aggressive or penetrating look.

  • He stepped in front of me, narrowing his eyes to slits.
  • She wagged her finger in his face, and her eyes narrowed.

More sentences with narrow

  • We’re narrowing the distance between the two versions of the bill.From the entry distance
  • The cello has a two-piece back with a beautiful narrow flame.From the entry flame
  • The obese woman couldn't ease her bulk through the narrow passageway.From the entry bulk
  • It was not strictly a cave, but a narrow fissure in the rock.From the entry cave
  • The gap between Western and Eastern societies seems to be narrowing.From the entry society
  • The team crossed streams and jumped across deep, narrow divides in the glacier.From the entry divide
  • The ruling party had a narrow three-seat majority in the legislature.From the entry majority
  • Cutting a string bean lengthwise is hard because they are so narrow.From the entry lengthwise
  • Narrow performs a type-safe conversion into an instance of a subclass.From the entry type-safe
  • After consulting with witnesses, the police narrowed down the suspects to those who had facial hair.From the entry narrow down
  • Angioplasty is a minimally invasive endovascular procedure used to widen narrowed or obstructed arteries or veins.From the entry minimally invasive
  • Tourists ambled through the narrow streets of the old town.From the entry amble
  • The squirrel flourished its fluffy tail about as an alarm signal after its narrow escape from the cat.From the entry flourish
  • The serpentine path through the mountains was narrow and dangerous.From the entry serpentine
  • The project would seriously go down the pan if Mrs. Foster weren't here to keep it on the straight and narrow.From the entry go down the pan
  • All the food on the menu looked delicious, so I tried to narrow down my choices to only healthy foods.From the entry narrow down
  • Narrow transcriptions are typically enclosed in square brackets.From the entry narrow transcription
  • Before they come back and charge jizillions per hour to do what I did, I'd like to narrow it down to keep costs down.From the entry jizillions
  • Politicians now use econobabble as a tool of mass confusion, aimed at scaring the public into doing things they don't want to do while narrowing our policy choices.From the entry econobabble
  • The Ordos region in the narrower sense is nomadic by history, in contrast to the agricultural and densely populated southeastern loess part that stretches up to the Wei River valley.From the entry ordos
  • The ectomorph body type is characterized by narrow shoulders and hips and a lean build.2025 February 6, Laura Schober, “Everything To Know About Having an Ectomorph Body Type”, in Health. From the entry ectomorph
  • Each day that the NIH continues to disrupt research, your ability to deliver on this duty narrows.”2025 August 7, Hannah Harris Green, “‘Impossible to rebuild’: NIH scientists say Trump cuts will imperil life-saving research”, in The…. From the entry congressionally
  • Farzan’s narrow backyard in Brooklyn’s South Slope neighborhood is a lush, if slightly chaotic, oasis.2023 September 29, Molly Fitzpatrick, “He’s the Pawpaw King of Brooklyn. (What’s a Pawpaw?)”, in The New York Times, →ISSN. From the entry peony
  • Its narrow definition of Covid deaths “will very much underestimate the true death toll,” the W.H.O. says.2022 December 23, Keith Bradsher, Amy Chang Chien, Joy Dong, “As Cases Explode, China’s Low Covid Death Toll Convinces No One”, in The New…. From the entry murky
  • They have to be squat, long and narrow to fit through the body of the TBM.2022 March 23, Paul Bigland, “HS2 is just 'passing through'”, in RAIL, number 953, page 41. From the entry get away with
  • Faiyum, his expression caught somewhere between boredom and disdain, narrows his kohled eyes.2022, N. K. Jemisin, The World We Make, Orbit, page 303. From the entry kohled
  • Blinked again, a slow narrowing and release of eyelids, an entirely evaluatory expression.2021, Arkady Martine, A Desolation Called Peace, Tor, page 59. From the entry evaluatory

Meaning of narrow

  1. adjective Having a small width; not wide; having opposite edges or sides that are close, especially by comparison to length or depth.
  2. adjective Of little extent; very limited; circumscribed.
  3. adjective Restrictive; without flexibility or latitude.

Full definition of narrow

Questions about narrow in a sentence

How do you use narrow in a sentence?
Narrow is used as an adjective, noun and verb. For example: “The Republicans won by a narrow majority.”
What is a short sentence with narrow?
“The road narrows.”
What does narrow mean?
Narrow means having a small width; not wide; having opposite edges or sides that are close, especially by comparison to length or depth.

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: narrow (page history and authors) and the entries each sentence comes from. Text available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 license. Word.ws chose the sentences, left out offensive ones and quotations older than 1900, and marked the word in each. Wiktionary data of 2026-09-02.

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Cite this page: “How to use narrow in a sentence.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/sentences/narrow. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.