Broaden and narrow are the antonyms of range. To broaden is to take in more — more variety, more voices, more of the world: you broaden your horizons, your knowledge, a debate. To narrow is to admit less: options narrow, a search is narrowed down, a mind narrows. Where the pair widen/narrow measures metres, broaden/narrow measures what is let in.
Both verbs are adjectives with an -en grafted on, and the adjectives set the terms: broad is range you cannot tape-measure — broad experience, broad support — while narrow is the want of it, in width or in outlook. As opposites they do their real work in the abstract: an education broadens; a fixation narrows. English then splits the physical work off to widen (roads, gaps), leaving this pair to horizons, minds, searches, and appeal — the essay half of the family.
broaden
To broaden is to make or become broader — wider, but especially wider in range and variety. A river broadens; more often, you broaden your horizons, your knowledge, your appeal, your mind. Built from broad, it leans toward the abstract where its cousin widen leans toward physical width and gaps. To broaden a debate is to let more voices and angles into it, not just to make it bigger. It works both ways — reading broadens the mind, and the estuary broadens. Its opposite is to narrow or to restrict.
narrow
To narrow is to lose width — the two sides of a thing drawing toward each other. A road narrows to one lane at roadworks, a river narrows into a gorge, eyes narrow in suspicion, and, in the figurative uses exams love, a gap narrows, options narrow, a search is narrowed down. The adjective came first (Old English nearu) and still does heavy duty: a narrow street, a narrow escape, a narrow majority — width so small that barely anything, or barely enough, gets through.
| broaden | narrow | |
|---|---|---|
| Meaning | let in more range and variety | admit less; reduce to fewer |
| Classic objects | horizons, knowledge, the mind, appeal | options, a search, a focus, an outlook |
| Key phrase | broaden your horizons | narrow down (the options) |
| Character words | broad-minded (open) | narrow-minded (closed, negative) |
| Grammar | both ways: reading broadens; the river broadens | both ways, plus the adjective narrow |
| Physical cousin | widen (metres — its own page) | (the same road-width sense) |
The beam and the cones. Broaden is the torch cone opening: the same light suddenly touching corners it never reached — more kinds of thing included, nothing measured. Narrow is the cones filing three lanes into one: fewer ways through, choices reduced to a line. Both work best where no ruler reaches — horizons broaden, options narrow — and the pair's character adjectives carry the verdicts: broad-minded lets more in; narrow-minded, less.
broaden
- iTwo years abroad broadened her idea of what counted as normal.
- iiThe channel broadened its output beyond news and sport.
- iiiVolunteering broadened his circle far beyond the office.
narrow
- iWith each rejection, his options narrowed.
- iiPolice narrowed the search to two streets by the river.
- iiiHer eyes narrowed as the story changed a third time.
Keep the family's jobs straight in one line: broaden and narrow trade in range; widen and narrow trade in width — that pair, and the gap idiom, have their own page on this site. Both of this page's verbs run transitive and intransitive: travel broadens the mind, the estuary broadens; you narrow a search, options narrow. The -minded compounds carry fixed verdicts — broad-minded is praise, narrow-minded is not.
The essay antonym pair: broaden your horizons / knowledge / access on one side, narrow down the options and a narrowing of focus on the other — with broad-minded and narrow-minded as the fixed character verdicts. In Task 2, 'the policy narrows educational choice' and 'exchange programmes broaden participation' show the pair doing real argumentative work. For physical width and for 'the gap', switch to widen — that distinction has its own page.