narrate

Etymology

It is borrowed from Latin narrō (“to relate, recount”), through its past participial stem narrāt-,^{[2][3][4][5][6]} or else, or at the same time, a back-formation from narration.^{[7][8][9][10][11]} Barnhart holds the back-formation the likelier of the two.^[7] The noun came first, before 1425, in Trevisa's translation of Higden's “Polychronicon”, from Old French narration and directly from Latin narrātiō.^[7] The Latin verb is related to gnārus (“knowing, skilled”),^[2][7][11] perhaps through a pre-Latin verb,^[7][6] and the group goes back to Proto-Indo-European *gnō- (“to know”),^[6][12][8] which makes ignore, recognize and, more distantly, know relatives.^[11] The OED compares Italian narrare, Middle French narrer, and Spanish narrar, which may lie behind its first English example.^[2][8]

Earliest recorded meaning

To relate or tell: the OED's first record, S. Holland's Don Zara (1656), purports to be translated from Spanish, and so is perhaps after narrar.^[2][8] Barnhart and Merriam-Webster also say 1656,^[7][4] while Etymonline starts the word's real use in 1748.^[8]

Semantic evolution

After 1656 the word appears only in Scots sources until the mid 18th century,^[2] including a use in Scots law, to set forth in a legal document (1689–1752).^[2] Richardson wrote in Clarissa (1748), "When I have least to narrate, to speak in the Scotish phrase, I am most diverting",^[2] and Johnson (1755) defined it with the comment "a word only used in Scotland".^[13][2] This stigma kept it out of general use until the 19th century,^[8] and it was still being criticized in the early 19th century.^[2][11] The intransitive use, to tell a story, is recorded from 1795.^[2] The sense "to speak the commentary of a film or broadcast" dates from 1958.^[2][14]

Timeline

• 1656 – to relate, recount.^[2][4][7] Etymonline dates the word to 1748.^[8]
• 1689 – in Scots law, to set forth in a legal document (obsolete by 1752).^[2]
• 1795 – intransitive, to tell a story.^[2]
• 1958 – to speak the commentary of a film or broadcast.^[2]

Meanings

Verb

1. To tell a story or give an account of events; to recount: The old sailor narrated his adventures to the children.^[14][4][2]
2. To speak the commentary that accompanies a film, television programme or exhibition: A well-known actor narrated the documentary.^[14][2]
3. To act as a storyteller, without an object.^[4][2]

Word family

• narratability
• narratable
• narrator
• misnarrate
• unnarrated

Related words

• narration
• narrative
• narratology
• ignore
• recognize
• know
• cognition

References

1. ^ a b Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l m n o p q r Oxford English Dictionary Online (accessed March 2026), Oxford: Oxford University Press
3. ^ Stevenson, Angus, ed. (2010), Oxford Dictionary of English, 3rd ed., Oxford: Oxford University Press
4. ^ a b c d e Merriam-Webster Unabridged Dictionary (2024), online ed., Springfield, Mass.: Merriam-Webster
5. ^ Dictionary.com Unabridged (2016), based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, New York: Random House
6. ^ a b c Klein, Ernest. A Comprehensive Etymological Dictionary of the English Language. 2 vols. Amsterdam: Elsevier, 1966–1967.
7. ^ a b c d e f g Barnhart, Robert K. (1988), The Barnhart Dictionary of Etymology
8. ^ a b c d e f g Harper, Douglas. Online Etymology Dictionary, https://www.etymonline.com
9. ^ Hoad, T. F., ed. (1986), The Concise Oxford Dictionary of English Etymology, Oxford: Clarendon Press
10. ^ Shorter Oxford English Dictionary on Historical Principles (2002), 5th ed., ed. William R. Trumble and Angus Stevenson, Oxford: Oxford University Press
11. ^ a b c d Ayto, John (2005), Word Origins: The Secret Histories of English Words from A to Z, 2nd ed., London: A & C Black
12. ^ The American Heritage Dictionary of the English Language (online 2024), 5th ed., Boston: Houghton Mifflin Harcourt
13. ^ Johnson, Samuel (1755), A Dictionary of the English Language, London; 4th ed. 1773; Johnson's Dictionary Online, ed. Beth Rapp Young et al.
14. ^ a b c Collins English Dictionary (2023), Glasgow: HarperCollins