narrow
Definition, pronunciation, etymology, and usage for the English word. Free spelling reference powered by Wiktionary.
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6 characters
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English
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Detailed reference entry for the English word "narrow", 6-letters, with pronunciation in International Phonetic Alphabet notation, etymology traced through Germanic and Romance roots where applicable, common misspelling variants catalogued from Hunspell error dictionaries, and usage frequency ranked against the top 100,000 English words in the Wordfreq corpus. PlainSpell covers English, Spanish, Portuguese, French, and German spelling with confusable-pair detection that highlights visually and phonetically similar words. This entry for "narrow" includes synonyms, antonyms, homophones, and cross-language translation pointers sourced from Wiktionary via the kaikki.org extract. Whether you are verifying the correct spelling of "narrow" for academic writing, checking homophone confusion, or exploring etymological origins, this page provides a citation-backed, free reference that requires no sign-up.
narrow is anEnglishadj. It means: Having a small width; not wide; having opposite edges or sides that are close, especially by comparison to length or depth. Pronounced /ˈnæɹ.əʊ/. It ranks #3,707 in English word frequency. Often confused with narrowly and narrower.
| Property | Value |
|---|---|
| Headword | narrow |
| Language | English |
| Part of speech | Adj |
| IPA | /ˈnæɹ.əʊ/ |
| Letters | 6 |
| Frequency rank | #3,707 |
| Misspellings tracked | 7 |
| Confusable pairs | 3 |
| Source | Wiktionary (kaikki.org) |
Frequency rank visualization
Spelling & Dictionary Insight
The English entry for narrow is 6 letters long, classified as anadj, and transcribed in the International Phonetic Alphabet as /ˈnæɹ.əʊ/. Corpus data places it at rank #3,707 in overall English word frequency, indicating it appears regularly in written and spoken text.Wiktionary records 10 distinct senses for this headword, so context determines which meaning a reader should apply.
Our Hunspell-derived misspelling index lists 7 documented wrong-spelling variants for narrow, with forms such as "anrrow", "narorw", and "narow". Each variant represents a distinct typo pattern that appears often enough in corpora to be worth flagging, typically a doubled-consonant error, a silent-letter drop, or a vowel substitution.It also participates in 3 confusable-pair relationships, "narrowly", "narrower", "narco", where similar look or sound leads writers to substitute one word for another in context.
Etymologically, the entry records: 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… Root origin matters for spelling because borrowed morphemes (Greek, Latin, Old French, Old English) carry their source-language orthographic conventions into modern English, which is why historical etymology is often the cleanest predictor of whether a cluster like "-ough", "-eau", or "-tion" will appear. For readers arriving here from a spelling check, the authoritative guidance is: the correct English form is narrow, spelled N-A-R-R-O-W, and any other sequence of those letters, regardless of how natural it feels, is a misspelling in standard orthography.
Definition
- 1Having a small width; not wide; having opposite edges or sides that are close, especially by comparison to length or depth.
- 2Of little extent; very limited; circumscribed.
- 3Restrictive; without flexibility or latitude.
- 4Contracted; of limited scope; bigoted
- 5Having a small margin or degree.
- 6Limited as to means; straitened
- 7Parsimonious; niggardly; covetous; selfish.
- 8Scrutinizing in detail; close; accurate; exact.
- 9Formed (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.
- 10Of or supporting only those text characters that can fit into the traditional 8-bit representation.
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 *naru, from Proto-Germanic *narwaz (“constricted, narrow”), from Proto-Indo-European *(s)ner- (“to turn, bend, twist, constrict”). Cognates Cognate with North Frisian naar, noar, noor, nåår (“narrow”), Saterland Frisian noar (“narrow”), Dutch naar (“nasty, scary; sickening, unpleasant”), Danish and Swedish nor (“narrow strait”); also Sanskrit नृत् (nṛt, “to dance; act on stage, represent”).
This word in other languages
Common misspellings
Also misspelled as: anrrow,narorw,narow,narroww,narrwo,nnarrow,nrarow
Misspelling Pattern Breakdown
Relative frequency of common misspelling types for narrow
Misspelling Variants of "narrow"
Frequency rank: #3,707 in English
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Nearby English words
Other entries that begin with the letter N in our English index: