narrowness

I

(New American Roget's College Thesaurus)

Restricted width

Nouns

1. narrowness, closeness, exiguity, littleness; thinness, tenuity, emaciation; narrowing; tapering, contraction; finger's- or hair's-breadth, line; strip, streak, vein.

2. shaving, chip; filament, thread, hair; sylph; neck, waist, isthmus, hourglass; pass; ravine, narrows, strait, gap; film, membrane (see layer).

3. skeleton, shadow, spindleshanks, lantern jaws, skin and bone[s]. Slang, rattlebones, long drink of water, stringbean.

Verbs — narrow, taper [off]; slice, shave, pare, trim, thin [down or out], slim, reduce, attenuate; waste away.

Adjectives

1. narrow, close; slender, thin, fine, gracile; threadlike, finespun, slim; wasp-waisted; scant[y]; tenuous, spare, delicate; contracted.

2. emaciated, lean, meager, gaunt, sinewy, rawboned, lank[y], gangling, gawky, scraggy, gangly, bony, reedy, skinny, thin as a rail, wasp-waisted, bareboned, flat-chested; svelte; starved, attenuated, shriveled, worn to ashadow; slender-waisted, waspish.

3. confined, limited; cramped, pinched, close, tight, constricted.

Adverbs — barely, only, just.

Quotations — Strait is the gate, and narrow is the way, which leadeth unto life, and few there be that find it (Bible), I'm fat, but I'm thin inside. Has it ever struck you that there's a thin man inside every fat man? (George Orwell), We hope that the world will not narrow into a neighborhood before it has broadened into a brotherhood (L. B. Johnson).

Antonyms, see breadth, liberality.

II

(Roget's IV) n.

1. [A physical restriction]

Syn. confinement, slimness, thinness, restriction; see barrier , impediment 1 , interference 1 .

2. [A mental restriction]

Syn. insularity, intolerance, bigotry, bias; see prejudice , stubbornness .