narrow

Very hungry. The phrase alludes to the idea of having a slimmer midsection due to not eating. I'm so narrow at the equator—can we please get some food now?

A situation in which danger or problems are barely avoided. That guy barely made it over the tracks before the train came. What a narrow escape!

Fig. to behave properly and correctly; to stay out of trouble. If you keep to the straight and narrow, you can't help but win in the end. I always keep to the straight and narrow.

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.

Fig. a success almost not achieved; a lucky or marginal success; a problem almost not surmounted. That was a narrow squeak. I don't know how I survived. Another narrow squeak like that and I'll give up.

Fig. a straight and law-abiding route through life. (Referring to a morally rigid and correct course of behavior. Fixed order.) You should have no trouble with the police if you stick to the straight and narrow. Roger was the kind who followed the straight and narrow every day of his life.

behavior that is correct and moral You have to keep to the straight and narrow if you want to stay on her good side.

a situation in which you were lucky because you just managed to avoid danger or trouble He only just got out of the vehicle before the whole thing blew up. It was a narrow escape.

if you keep on the straight and narrow, you behave in a way that is honest and moral The threat of a good beating should keep him on the straight and narrow. Have you ever been tempted to stray from the straight and narrow?

A barely successful flight from or avoidance of danger or trouble, as in He had a narrow escape, since the bullet came within inches of his head. This expression uses narrow in the sense of "barely sufficient." [Late 1500s] For a newer synonym, see close call.

The honest and upright way of living, as in He led a wild life when he was young, but he's been on the straight and narrow for some years . This expression is widely though to come from confusion of straight, "not crooked," with strait, "narrow," owing to a misinterpretation of a passage from the New Testament: "Strait is the gate, and narrow is the way, which leadeth unto life" (Matthew 7:14). The current phrase dates only from the first half of the 1800s.