Search the Dictionary

That which confines or contracts; a restraint; a shakle; a hindrance. A narrow fortune is a cramp to a great mind. L'Estrange. Crippling his pleasures with the cramp of fear. Cowper.

Liable to careen or be overest, as a ship when she is too narrow, or has not sufficient ballast, or is loaded too high, to carry full sail.

A small, narrow opening, fissure, crevice, or chink, as in a wall, or other substance. In a firm building, the cavities ought not to be filled with rubbish, but with brick or stone fitted to the crannies. Dryden. He peeped into every cranny. Arbuthnot.

Coarse, heavy, narrow linen cloth, used esp. for towels.

A small inlet or bay, narrower and extending further into the land than a cove; a recess in the shore of the sea, or of a river. Each creek and cavern of the dangerous shore. Cowper. They discovered a certain creek, with a shore. Acts xxvii. 39.

A narrow opening resulting from a split or crack or the separation of a junction; a cleft; a fissure; a rent. The mouse, Behind the moldering wainscot, shrieked, Or from the crevice peered about. Tennyson.

To shut up or confine in a narrow habitation; to cage; to cramp. If only the vital energy be not cribbed or cramped. I. Taylor. Now I am cabin'd, cribbed, confined. Shak.

A term used when a narrow ribbon of veneer is inserted into the surfase of any piece of furniture, wainscoting, etc., so that the grain of it is contrary to the general surface.

n, for keeping, preservation, or security. A fleet of thirty ships for the custody of the narrow seas. Bacon.

A fast sailing vessel with one mast, rigged in most essentials like a sloop. A cutter is narrower end deeper than a sloop of the same length, and depends for stability on a deep keel, often heavily weighted with lead.

A rapid, esp. one where the channel is narrowed between rock walls. [Northwestern U. S. & Canada]

Dark; gloomy; obscure; shaded; cheerless. [Poetic] He brought him through a darksome narrow pass To a broad gate, all built of beaten gold. Spenser.

rue lilies, but having tuberous rootstocks instead of bulbs. The common species have long narrow leaves and either yellow or tawny-orange flowers.

or plank of fir or pine above seven inches in width, and exceeding six feet in length. If narrower than this, it is called a batten; if shorter, a deal end.

gypt. Acts vii. 11. He with her press'd, she faint with dearth. Shak. Dearth of plot, and narrowness of imagination. Dryden.

Any narrow passage or gorge in which troops can march only in a file, or with a narrow front; a long, narrow pass between hills, rocks, etc.

Resources; means. [Obs.] You know How narrow our demeans are. Massinger.

A narrow glen; a ravine; a dell. [Old Eng. & Scotch] Shak.

A mark or attribute, attached to the subject or predicate, narrowing the extent of both, but rendering them more definite and precise. Abp. Thomson.

To free from what is vulgar, common, or narrow. Shakespeare and Plutarch's "Lives" are very devulgarizing books. E. A. Abbott.