narrate
/ˈnæreɪt/verb
Tell or recount events in detailed sequence
From Proto-Indo-European *gno- (to know).
Lineage
The story
A narrator is, at root, someone who knows: the ancient connection runs from Proto-Indo-European *gno-, “to know,” into Latin narrare, “to tell.” Latin speakers used narratus for something “told” or “recounted,” and English eventually turned that form into narrate. The verb is recorded in English by 1656, but for centuries it carried an awkward social label: eighteenth-century authorities Richardson and Johnson called it Scottish, which helped keep it unfashionable until the nineteenth century. Its relatives make the family resemblance clearer—knowledge becomes narration when what you know is arranged into a story. So when you narrate, you are not merely talking; you are turning knowledge into a sequence someone else can follow.