Narrows


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narrow down

To pare the number of people or things on a list down to a more manageable or select number. A noun or pronoun can be used between "narrow" and "down." We've narrowed down our list of candidates to just three, but it's going to be nigh impossible to choose from them. Let's narrow it down to just our very top choices, otherwise we'll never pick a place to go.
See also: down, narrow

narrow the gap

To lessen the distance, difference, or disparity between two sides, viewpoints, positions, etc. Now that I know he's making $10,000 more than me, management will have to narrow the gap if they want me to stay on. It would really behoove those in power to work to narrow the enormous gap between liberals and conservatives.
See also: gap, narrow
Farlex Dictionary of Idioms. © 2024 Farlex, Inc, all rights reserved.

narrow something down (to people or things)

to reduce a list of possibilities from many to a selected few. We can narrow the choice down to green or red. We narrowed down the choice to you or Paul.
See also: down, narrow
McGraw-Hill Dictionary of American Idioms and Phrasal Verbs. © 2002 by The McGraw-Hill Companies, Inc.
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References in classic literature ?
In our descent we followed the line of ridges; these were exceedingly narrow, and for considerable lengths steep as a ladder; but all clothed with vegetation.
A single shriek such as they had heard the night before would have been sufficient to have sent them all racing madly for the narrow cleft that led through the great walls to the outer world.
Already she could hear the increasing roar of the river as it rushed, wild and tumultuous, through the entrance to the narrow gorge below her.
Even as my mind framed the thought, Woola halted suddenly before a narrow, arched doorway in the cliff by the trail's side.
We went to the great Bazaar in Stamboul, of course, and I shall not describe it further than to say it is a monstrous hive of little shops-- thousands, I should say--all under one roof, and cut up into innumerable little blocks by narrow streets which are arched overhead.
I looked round and saw to the right of me and a half-dozen yards in front of me a narrow gap in the wall of rock through which a ray of light slanted into the shadows.
I clambered up the narrow cleft in the rock and came out upon the sulphur on the westward side of the village of the Beast Men.
That gap was altogether fortunate for me, for the narrow chimney, slanting obliquely upward, must have impeded the nearer pursuers.
An-echantillon--a--a sample often serves to give an idea of the whole; besides, narrow and wide are words comparative, are they not?
"Yes--a mole, which lives underground would seem narrow even to me."
Here, all was almost total darkness until his eyes became accustomed to the interior, the darkness of which was slightly alleviated by the reflected light from a distant street flare which shone intermittently through the narrow windows fronting the thoroughfare.
Here is a door," and a moment later we were in a tiny antechamber at the foot of a narrow stone staircase.
Swinging myself outward, I began the descent, and had come to within a few feet of the ground, being just opposite a narrow window, when I was startled by a savage growl almost in my ear, and then a great taloned paw darted from the aperture to seize me, and I saw the snarling face of a lion within the embrasure.
The Assistant Commissioner walked along a short and narrow street like a wet, muddy trench, then crossing a very broad thoroughfare entered a public edifice, and sought speech with a young private secretary (unpaid) of a great personage.
Again he crossed the wide thoroughfare, walked along a narrow street, and re-entered hastily his own departmental buildings.