English Explanatory Dictionary

hollow

English dictionary entry

Meanings

noun
  1. A small valley between mountains.
  2. A sunken area on a surface.
  3. An unfilled space in something solid; a cavity, natural or artificial.
  4. A feeling of emptiness.
verb
  1. to make a hole in something; to excavate
adj
  1. Having an empty space or cavity inside.
  2. Distant, eerie; echoing, reverberating, as if in a hollow space; dull, muffled; often low-pitched.
  3. Without substance; having no real or significant worth; meaningless.
  4. Insincere, devoid of validity; specious.
  5. Concave; gaunt; sunken.
  6. Pertaining to hollow body position
  7. Synonym of empty (“lacking between the onset of tasting and the finish”).
adv
  1. Completely, as part of the phrase beat hollow or beat all hollow.
verb
  1. To call or urge by shouting; to hollo.
intj
  1. Alternative form of hollo.

Pronunciation

/ˈhɒləʊ/ /ˈhɑloʊ/ en-us-hollow.ogg /ˈhɔlo/ /ˈhɒlou/ /ˈhɑlɚ/

Word forms

hollow hollows hallow holler hollowing hollowed hollower hollowest

Etymology

From Middle English holow, holowe, holwe, holwȝ, holgh, from Old English holh (“a hollow”), from Proto-West Germanic *holh, from Proto-Germanic *hulhwą, perhaps from Proto-Indo-European *ḱólḱwos. Cognate with Old High German huliwa and hulwa, Middle High German hülwe. Related to hole.

Synonyms

depression empty

Derived words

Black Hollow Frogs Hollow frost hollow hollow of the knee Quail Hollow Sandy Hollow Sleepy Hollow Ten Mile Hollow tree hollow hollow out all hollow hollow back hollow block hollow body hollow book hollow earther hollow-eyed hollow-faced bat hollow-fiber hollowfiber hollowfibre hollow-fibre hollow-hearted hollowhearted hollow-heartedly hollow-heartedness hollow leg hollowly hollowness hollow point hollow position hollow post mill hollow rail hollowroot hollow sprint hollow victory hollowware hollowwort jacketed hollow point nonhollow overhollow ring hollow semihollow unhollow
This entry uses open data from Wiktionary (CC BY-SA/GFDL). Word forms are used for search and are not indexed as separate pages.
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