hollow

• holler (nonstandard: dialectal, especially Southern US)

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

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  • (Southern American English, Appalachia) IPA^(key): /hɑlɚ/
• Rhymes: -ɒləʊ

Middle English holow, earlier holgh, from Old English holh (“a hollow”), from Proto-Germanic *holhwo-. Cognate with Old High German huliwa and hulwa, Middle High German hülwe. Perhaps related to hole.

hollow (plural hollows)

1. A small valley between mountains.
   • c. 1710–20, Matthew Prior, The First Hymn Of Callimachus: To Jupiter

     Forests grew upon the barren hollows.

   • 1855, Alfred Tennyson, Maud

     I hate the dreadful hollow behind the little wood.

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

2. A sunken area or unfilled space in something solid; a cavity, natural or artificial.

   the hollow of the hand or of a tree

3. (US) A sunken area.
4. (figuratively) A feeling of emptiness.

   a hollow in the pit of one's stomach

5. An exercise in which one lies on one's back with legs and head in the air and arms in the air extended above the head ()

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 holw, holeh.

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. 1596-1599, William Shakespeare, The Merchant of Venice

     To view with hollow eye and wrinkled brow

6. (gymnastics) pertaining to hollow body position

• hollow leg

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 urge or call by shouting; to hollo.
   • 1814. Sir Walter Scott, Waverley

     He has hollowed the hounds.

hollow

1. Alternative form of hollo

• hollow in Webster’s Revised Unabridged Dictionary, G. & C. Merriam, 1913.