Hollow

How to spell hollow

6 letters · 2 syllables

How to pronounce hollow

Say the part in capitals loudest.

What does hollow mean?

1. adjectiveHaving an empty space or cavity inside rather than being solid.
2. nounA small valley or sheltered dip in the land.
3. verbTo form an empty space by removing the inside of something.

Hollow in a sentence

• adjective

  The chocolate egg was hollow and broke at the lightest touch.

• noun

  The cottage sat in a quiet hollow between two wooded hills.

• verb

  The carpenters had to hollow out the log to make a canoe.

• adjective

  A hollow steel tube weighs far less than a solid bar.

• noun

  Mist gathered in the hollow every morning before sunrise.

• verb

  Frost can hollow the trunk of an old tree from within.

Where does hollow come from?

Language of origin: Germanic

Hollow comes from the Old English noun 'holh', which meant a hollow place, a hole, or a cave, and is closely tied to the word 'hole'. It belongs to the native Germanic layer of English, with relatives across the older Germanic languages that all carried the idea of an empty or dug-out space. Over the medieval period the noun developed an adjective use describing anything with an empty cavity inside, and the modern spelling settled with the doubled 'l' and the '-ow' ending by the late Middle English period. The figurative senses, such as a 'hollow' victory that feels empty of real value, or a 'hollow' laugh that rings false, grew naturally out of that core image of emptiness. The chief spelling trap is purely the doubled 'l' and the silent-sounding '-ow' tail, which echoes the related but differently spelled 'hole'.

How the word is built

• holl- (from Old English holh: a hollow place, cave)
• -ow (forming the modern noun and adjective)