Definitions

from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 5th Edition.

  • adjective Having a cavity, gap, or space within.
  • adjective Deeply indented or concave; sunken.
  • adjective Without substance or character: synonym: vain.
  • adjective Devoid of truth or validity; specious.
  • adjective Having a reverberating, sepulchral sound.
  • noun A cavity, gap, or space.
  • noun An indented or concave surface or area.
  • noun A void; an emptiness.
  • noun A small valley between hills or mountains.
  • intransitive verb To make hollow.
  • intransitive verb To scoop or form by making concave.
  • intransitive verb To become hollow or empty.

from The Century Dictionary.

  • To make hollow; excavate; make empty.
  • To bend into a curved or concave form.
  • A variant of hollo.
  • Beyond doubt or question; utterly; completely; out-and-out: often with all for emphasis: as, he beat him hollow, or all hollow; he carried it hollow.
  • noun A cavity; a depression or an excavation below the general level, as of the ground, or in the substance of anything; an empty space in anything; a concavity.
  • noun Specifically, a concave space of ground; a piece or tract of land lower than the general level, or hemmed in by hills: used in many place-names in the United States: as, Sleepy Hollow in New York.
  • noun A concave plane used in working moldings.
  • noun A strip of thick paper or of pasteboard cut to the exact height and thickness required for a book for which the boards and cloth are intended, and which acts as a gage for the guidance of the case-makers, and as a stiffener for the cloth at the back of the book between the boards.
  • Having a cavity within; having an empty space in the interior: as, a hollow tree; a hollow rock; a hollow sphere.
  • Having a concavity; concave; sunken: as, a hollow way or road.
  • Resembling sound reverberated from a cavity, or producing such a sound; deep; low.
  • Empty; without contents; hence, without pith or substance; fruitless; worthless: as, a hollow victory; a hollow argument.
  • Not sincere or faithful; false; deceitful; not sound: as, a hollow heart.
  • Void of meaning or truth; empty; baseless: as, hollow oaths; a hollow mockery.
  • Thorough; complete; out-and-out.
  • Having, as wool, the fibers torn apart, so that it is light and open.
  • Synonyms Empty, void, cavernous.
  • Faithless, iusincere, treacherous, hypocritical.

from the GNU version of the Collaborative International Dictionary of English.

  • transitive verb To make hollow, as by digging, cutting, or engraving; to excavate.
  • noun A cavity, natural or artificial; an unfilled space within anything; a hole, a cavern; an excavation; as the hollow of the hand or of a tree.
  • noun A low spot surrounded by elevations; a depressed part of a surface; a concavity; a channel.
  • interjection Hollo.
  • adverb colloq. Wholly; completely; utterly; -- chiefly after the verb to beat, and often with all. See all, adv.
  • intransitive verb To shout; to hollo.
  • transitive verb To urge or call by shouting.
  • adjective Having an empty space or cavity, natural or artificial, within a solid substance; not solid; excavated in the interior
  • adjective Depressed; concave; gaunt; sunken.
  • adjective Reverberated from a cavity, or resembling such a sound; deep; muffled.
  • adjective Not sincere or faithful; false; deceitful; not sound
  • adjective (Arch.) an opening in the center of a winding staircase in place of a newel post, the stairs being supported by the wall; an open newel; also, the stringpiece or rail winding around the well of such a staircase.
  • adjective (Engin.) a pier of stone or brick made behind the lock gates of a canal, and containing a hollow or recess to receive the ends of the gates.
  • adjective (Bot.) See Moschatel.
  • adjective See Square.
  • adjective hollow vessels; -- a trade name for cast-iron kitchen utensils, earthenware, etc.

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License.

  • verb To urge or call by shouting; to hollo.
  • noun A small valley between mountains; "he built himself a cabin in a hollow high up in the Rockies"
  • noun A sunken area in something solid.
  • noun US A sunken area, the equivalent to a copse in British English.

Etymologies

from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 4th Edition

[Middle English holwe, holowe, from holgh, hole, burrow (influenced by hole, hollow), from Old English holh; see kel- in Indo-European roots.]

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License

Middle English holow, earlier holgh, from Old English holh ("a hollow")', from hol ("hollow (adj.)"). See above.

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License

Middle English holw, holh, from Old English hol ("hollow"), from Proto-Germanic *hulaz (compare Dutch hol, German hohl, Danish hul), from Proto-Indo-European *k̑ówHilo- (compare Albanian thellë ("deep"), Ancient Greek κοῖλος (koĩlos, "hollow")', Avestan  (sūra), Sanskrit  (kulyā, "brook, ditch")), from *k̑ówH- (“cavity”). More at cave.

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Examples

  • We did nothing when we heard the shooting as your airship took flight, then … He shrugged, his expression hollow.

    Firestorm L.A Graf 2000

  • The nut looked as if it were filled with tobacco or black rich earth; it was what we call hollow, or worm-eaten.

    What the Moon Saw: and Other Tales Alfred Walter Bayes 1840

  • He said last week that it would lead to what he calls a hollow force.

    News 2011

  • He said last week that it would lead to what he calls a hollow force.

    News 2011

  • Economists and pundits have long feared the emergence of what they called "hollow corporations," or businesses that don't actually produce actual goods or services themselves, but instead act as brokers or intermediaries relying on networks of suppliers and partners.

    Forbes.com: News Joe McKendrick 2011

  • X-ray laser, scientists managed to create what they called hollow atoms, giving just a preview of the kind of science expected to be done there.

    American Scientist Online 2010

  • X-ray laser, scientists managed to create what they called hollow atoms, giving just a preview of the kind of science expected to be done there.

    Science and Reason 2010

  • Change FG-COMPOSITE Display to edit (half visible triangles, and VIVID NON RED points, and light boundary). the boundary will be handy change FGX display style to be what I referred to as hollow with my team.

    All Discussion Groups: Message List - root 2008

  • Change FG-COMPOSITE Display to edit (half visible triangles, and VIVID NON RED points, and light boundary). the boundary will be handy change FGX display style to be what I referred to as hollow with my team.

    All Discussion Groups: Message List - root 2008

  • I use Hornady 75 grain hollow points or VMAX for varmints but will shoot 87 grain hollow points if I am hunting coyotes at 200-600 yards (the 75 grain decks them all right but can kind of blow them up if you hit them wrong).

    best 25-06 bullet for whitetail deer at around 100-200 yard shots? brand, grain wt., etc. 2009

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