narrator

Etymology

It is borrowed from Latin narrātor (“a teller, relater, historian”),^[2][3][4] an agent noun formed with the suffix -or on narrātus, the past participle of narrō (“to tell, relate”), the verb behind narrate.^[2][3][5][6] The OED compares narrateur, recorded in Middle French from the early 16th century, and notes that the English verb narrate is later.^[2] Johnson (1755) gave both the French and the Latin word as its source.^[7]

Earliest recorded meaning

A person who narrates or gives an account of something: 1599, in Samuel Harsnett's Discovery of the Fraudulent Practices of John Darrel.^[2] Etymonline dates the word to the 1610s and the Shorter Oxford to the early 17th century.^[3][6]

Semantic evolution

Johnson (1755) defined a narrator simply as "a teller; a relater".^[7] The form narrater was also used in early modern English.^[6] The literary sense, the voice or persona through which the events of a novel or narrative poem are told, whether named or only implied, is recorded from 1722, in Allan Ramsay's Tale of Three Bonnets.^[2][8] Broadcasting and film added a further sense: a 1941 BBC glossary has the word for a character who tells part of the plot to the audience, or for the person who speaks a commentary,^[2] and Etymonline also dates the sense "commentator in a radio programme" to 1941.^[3]

Timeline

• 1599 – a person who gives an account of something.^[2]
• 1610s – Etymonline's first date.^[3]
• 1722 – the voice that tells the events of a novel or narrative poem.^[2]
• 1941 – a character who relates the plot to the audience; a person who speaks a commentary.^[2][3]

Modern meaning

Noun

1. A person who tells a story or gives an account of events.
2. The voice or character through whom the events of a novel, poem or other narrative are told: Halfway through the book we begin to doubt the narrator.
3. A person who speaks the commentary that accompanies a film, television programme or stage performance.

Related words

• narrate
• narration
• narrative
• raconteur

References

1. ^ a b Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ a b c d e f g h i Oxford English Dictionary Online (accessed March 2026), Oxford: Oxford University Press
3. ^ a b c d e f Harper, Douglas. Online Etymology Dictionary, https://www.etymonline.com
4. ^ Klein, Ernest. A Comprehensive Etymological Dictionary of the English Language. 2 vols. Amsterdam: Elsevier, 1966–1967.
5. ^ Merriam-Webster Unabridged Dictionary (2024), online ed., Springfield, Mass.: Merriam-Webster
6. ^ a b c Shorter Oxford English Dictionary on Historical Principles (2002), 5th ed., ed. William R. Trumble and Angus Stevenson, Oxford: Oxford University Press
7. ^ a b Johnson, Samuel (1755), A Dictionary of the English Language, London; 4th ed. 1773; Johnson's Dictionary Online, ed. Beth Rapp Young et al.
8. ^ Kay, Christian; Roberts, Jane; Samuels, Michael; Wotherspoon, Irené, eds. (2009), Historical Thesaurus of the Oxford English Dictionary, Oxford: Oxford University Press; online edition (2024)