Narrow and widen are the plain antonyms of width. To narrow is to lose width — the sides draw toward each other: a road narrows to one lane, eyes narrow in suspicion, options narrow. To widen is to gain it — the sides move apart: a road is widened, eyes widen in surprise, and the gap between rich and poor widens. Same road, same eyes, same gap; the only question is whether the sides are closing in or drawing apart.
This is the antonym pair that measures everything with two sides. Both verbs work transitively and intransitively — the council widens the road, the road widens; roadworks narrow the lanes, the lanes narrow — and both carry their figurative weight in the same object: the gap. Narrow the gap and widen the gap are the standard English of differences closing and opening — incomes, test scores, polls — which is why the pair is practically a required tool in IELTS Task 1. Narrow began life as an adjective (Old English nearu) and still moonlights as one: a narrow street, a narrow escape.
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.
widen
To widen is to make or become wider — a road is widened, a river widens, eyes widen in surprise. It is the plain verb built from wide, and it works both ways: you widen something, or something widens on its own. Its great figurative use is the gap: to widen the gap, gulf, or divide between two things — rich and poor, leader and rest — is one of the most useful phrases in essay writing. Where broaden leans toward range and variety, widen keeps to physical width and to distances opening up. Its opposite is narrow.
| narrow | widen | |
|---|---|---|
| Meaning | sides draw together; width is lost | sides move apart; width is gained |
| The gap | narrow the gap = difference closes | widen the gap = difference grows |
| Eyes | narrow in suspicion or focus | widen in surprise |
| Grammar | verb and adjective (a narrow street) | verb (built from the adjective wide) |
| Often with | narrow down the options, a narrow margin | widen access, widen the road |
| Neighbours | constrict (with a squeeze), taper (to a point) | broaden (in range — its own page) |
Cones in, verges out. Narrow is the cones marching across the road until three lanes are a single-car corridor — the sides closed in, and everything must file through. Widen is the same road from above, edges drawing apart until new lane-lines fit where there was one — the sides moved out, and more flows. Neither scene adds or removes tarmac; width is just the distance between the sides. Gaps behave identically: differences narrow as they close and widen as they grow.
narrow
- iThe road narrows to a single lane across the old bridge.
- iiPolls show the gap between the two candidates narrowing every week.
- iiiWe narrowed the shortlist down to three candidates by Friday.
widen
- iThe council plans to widen the junction to ease the morning queue.
- iiHer eyes widened as the total appeared on the screen.
- iiiWithout intervention, the income gap between regions will keep widening.
Both verbs go both ways grammatically, which keeps trend writing clean: the gap narrowed, we narrowed the search; the divide widened, they widened access. Narrow also serves as the adjective (a narrow majority, a narrow escape — the 'barely' sense), which widen lacks; wide covers that side. And when the widening is of range or variety rather than physical width — horizons, appeal, the mind — English reaches for broaden, a distinction with its own page on this site.
IELTS Task 1's gap machinery lives here: the gap narrowed / widened is the standard language for differences in line graphs and tables, and narrow down powers option-reduction everywhere (narrow down the choices). The adjective's idioms carry the 'barely' sense examiners like: a narrow escape, a narrow majority, won by a narrow margin. For eyes, keep the emotional code: narrowed eyes suspect; widened eyes are surprised.