shallow

From Middle English schalowe (“not deep, shallow”); apparently related to Old English sceald (“shallow”). See also shoal.

• (UK) IPA^(key): /ˈʃaləʊ/
• (US) IPA^(key): /ˈʃæl.oʊ/

• Audio (US)

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• Rhymes: -æləʊ
• Hyphenation: shal‧low

shallow (comparative shallower, superlative shallowest)

1. Having little depth; significantly less deep than wide.

   This crater is relatively shallow.

   Saute the onions in a shallow pan.

2. Extending not far downward.

   The water is shallow here.

3. Concerned mainly with superficial matters.

   It was a glamorous but shallow lifestyle.

4. Lacking interest or substance.

   The acting is good, but the characters are shallow.

5. Not intellectually deep; not penetrating deeply; simple; not wise or knowing.

   shallow learning

   • Francis Bacon

     The king was neither so shallow, nor so ill advertised, as not to perceive the intention of the French king.

6. (obsolete) Not deep in tone.
   • Francis Bacon

     the sound perfecter and not so shallow and jarring

7. (tennis) Not far forward, close to the net
   • 2012 June 28, Jamie Jackson, “Wimbledon 2012: Lukas Rosol shocked by miracle win over Rafael Nadal”, in the Guardian‎:

     Rosol spurned the chance to finish off a shallow second serve by spooning into the net, and a wild forehand took the set to 5-4, with the native of Prerov required to hold his serve for victory.

• deep

• given enough eyeballs, all bugs are shallow

shallow (plural shallows)

1. A shallow portion of an otherwise deep body of water.

   The ship ran aground in an unexpected shallow.

   • Francis Bacon

     A swift stream is not heard in the channel, but upon shallows of gravel.

   • Dryden

     dashed on the shallows of the moving sand

   • 1895, H. G. Wells, The Time Machine:

     It happened that, as I was watching some of the little people bathing in a shallow, one of them was seized with cramp and began drifting downstream.

2. A fish, the rudd.

• Usually used in the plural form.

• shoal
• sandbar
• sandbank

shallow (third-person singular simple present shallows, present participle shallowing, simple past and past participle shallowed)

1. (transitive, intransitive) To make or become less deep.
   • 2009 February 6, Andrew Z. Krug et al., “Signature of the End-Cretaceous Mass Extinction in the Modern Biota”, in Science‎, volume 323, number 5915, DOI:10.1126/science.1164905, pages 767-771:

     The shallowing of Cenozoic age-frequency curves from tropics to poles thus appears to reflect the decreasing probability for genera to reach and remain established in progressively higher latitudes ( 9 ).

• hallows