hollow

• hallow
• holler (nonstandard: dialectal, especially Southern US)

• (UK) IPA^(key): /ˈhɒl.əʊ/
• (US) IPA^(key): /ˈhɑ.loʊ/

  • Audio (US):

    (file)

  • (Southern US, Appalachia) IPA^(key): /ˈhɑlɚ/
• Rhymes: -ɒləʊ

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. (Can this⁽⁺⁾ etymology be sourced?) Cognate with Old High German huliwa and hulwa, Middle High German hülwe. Related to hole.

hollow (plural hollows)

1. (geography) A small valley between mountains.

   He built himself a cabin in a hollow high up in the Rockies.

   • c. 1710–20, Matthew Prior, The First Hymn Of Callimachus: To Jupiter

     Forests grew upon the barren hollows.

   • 1820 March 5, Geoffrey Crayon [pseudonym; Washington Irving], “The Legend of Sleepy Hollow”, in The Sketch Book of Geoffrey Crayon, Gent., number VI, New York, N.Y.: […] C[ornelius] S. Van Winkle, […], →OCLC, pages 110–111:

     This road leads through a sandy hollow shaded by trees for about a quarter of a mile, where it crosses the bridge famous in goblin story, and just beyond swells the green knoll on which stands the whitewashed church.

   • 1855, Alfred Tennyson, “Maud”, in Maud, and Other Poems, London: Edward Moxon, […], →OCLC, part I, stanza 1, page 1:

     I hate the dreadful hollow behind the little wood, / Its lips in the field above are dabbled with blood-red heath, / The red-ribb'd hedges drip with a silent horror of blood, / And Echo there, whatever is ask'd her, answers 'Death.'

2. A sunken area on a surface.

   the hollow of the hand

3. An unfilled space in something solid; a cavity, natural or artificial.

   a hollow in a tree trunk

4. (figuratively) A feeling of emptiness.

   a hollow in the pit of one’s stomach

hollow (third-person singular simple present hollows, present participle hollowing, simple past and past participle hollowed)

1. (transitive) to make a hole in something; to excavate

From Middle English holowe, holwe, holuȝ, holgh, from the noun (see above).

hollow (comparative hollower, superlative hollowest)

1. (of something solid) Having an empty space or cavity inside.

   a hollow tree; a hollow sphere

2. (of a sound) Distant, eerie; echoing, reverberating, as if in a hollow space; dull, muffled; often low-pitched.

   He let out a hollow moan.

   • 1903, George Gordon Byron, On Leaving Newstead Abbey:

     Through thy battlements, Newstead, the hollow winds whistle:

3. (figuratively) Without substance; having no real or significant worth; meaningless.

   a hollow victory

4. (figuratively) Insincere, devoid of validity; specious.

   a hollow promise

5. Concave; gaunt; sunken.
   • c. 1596–1598 (date written), William Shakespeare, “The Merchant of Venice”, in Mr. William Shakespeares Comedies, Histories, & Tragedies […] (First Folio), London: […] Isaac Iaggard, and Ed[ward] Blount, published 1623, →OCLC, (please specify the act number in uppercase Roman numerals, and the scene number in lowercase Roman numerals):

     To view with hollow eye and wrinkled brow

6. (gymnastics) Pertaining to hollow body position
7. (oenology) Synonym of empty (“lacking between the onset of tasting and the finish”)
   • 2002, Robert M. Parker (Jr.), ‎Pierre-Antoine Rovani, Parker's Wine Buyer's Guide (page 175)

     While most 1974s remain hard, tannic, hollow wines lacking ripeness, flesh, and character, a number of the Graves estates did produce surprisingly spicy, interesting wines.

hollow (not comparable)

1. (colloquial) Completely, as part of the phrase beat hollow or beat all hollow.

Compare holler.

hollow (third-person singular simple present hollows, present participle hollowing, simple past and past participle hollowed)

1. To call or urge by shouting; to hollo.
   • 1749, Henry Fielding, chapter IV, in The History of Tom Jones, a Foundling, volume III, London: A[ndrew] Millar, […], →OCLC, book VII, page 26:

     [T]he Converſation (if it may be called ſo) was ſeldom ſuch as could entertain a Lady. It conſiſted chiefly of Hollowing, Singing, Relations of ſporting Adventures, B—d—y, and Abuſe of Women and of the Government.

   • 1814 July 7, [Walter Scott], Waverley; or, ’Tis Sixty Years Since. […], volume (please specify |volume=I to III), Edinburgh:  […] James Ballantyne and Co. for Archibald Constable and Co.; London: Longman, Hurst, Rees, Orme, and Brown, →OCLC:

     He has hollowed the hounds.

hollow

1. Alternative form of hollo

• “hollow”, in Webster’s Revised Unabridged Dictionary, Springfield, Mass.: G. & C. Merriam, 1913, →OCLC.