narrator

American  

[nar-ey-ter, na-rey‑, nar-uh‑] / ˈnær eɪ tər, næˈreɪ‑, ˈnær ə‑ /

Or narrater

noun

1. a person who gives an account or tells the story of events, experiences, etc.

2. a person who adds spoken commentary to a film, television program, slide show, etc.

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narrator British  

/ nəˈreɪtə /

noun

1. a person who tells a story or gives an account of something

2. a person who speaks in accompaniment of a film, television programme, etc

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narrator Cultural  

1. A person who tells a story; in literature, the voice that an author takes on to tell a story. This voice can have a personality quite different from the author's. For example, in his story “The Tell-Tale Heart,” Edgar Allan Poe makes his narrator a raving lunatic.

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Etymology

Origin of narrator

First recorded in 1610–20; from Latin narrātor “narrator, historian” narrate ( def. ), -or ² ( def. )

Example Sentences

The narrator creates a small scandal by jokingly telling the story of his transcription blunder.

From The Wall Street Journal • Mar. 31, 2026

The narrator of “10:04” dreams of a book that, “like a poem, is neither fiction nor nonfiction, but a flickering between them.”

From The Wall Street Journal • Mar. 31, 2026

Cinematographer Isaac Bauman’s eye never stops moving — an independent narrator telling a different story than the one starring our heroine.

From Los Angeles Times • Mar. 26, 2026

The narrator of Anne Haverty’s “One Day as a Tiger” quits college in a time of personal crisis to return to the family farm.

From The Wall Street Journal • Mar. 9, 2026

The narrator, a famed marine biologist named Pierre Aronnax, works at the same museum as her father!

From "All the Light We Cannot See" by Anthony Doerr

Related Words

• author
• chronicler
• novelist
• writer