narrows

Pluralnarrows

1. 1
   verb

   Third-person singular simple present of narrow.

   The river narrows sharply where it enters the gorge.

   The gap between the two teams narrows with every match they play.

   Note

   The -s form carries every use of the verb, and the verb works in both directions: a road narrows on its own, while a ruling narrows the reach of a law. A single subject takes it in other senses too, as in she narrows her eyes. Programmers have their own use, where code narrows a value into a smaller data type. Do not confuse it with the waterway noun, which shares the spelling.

2. 2
   nouncountable

   A constricted stretch of a navigable waterway, where the opposing banks draw close together and the channel becomes narrow.

   Like the waist of an hourglass, where everything has to pass through a slender middle.

   Pilots take extra care steering large vessels through the narrows at low tide.

   The harbor's narrows funnel the tide into a fast-moving channel twice a day.

   Similarstrait, channel

   Note

   A noun that is plural in form whether it names one stretch of water or several, so there is no separate singular to reach for. It usually comes with the, and it can take a plural verb: the narrows funnel the tide. It is built on the adjective narrow and shares a spelling with the verb form, so "the channel narrows" and "the narrows" are different words.

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