Shallow

How to spell shallow

7 letters · 2 syllables

How to pronounce shallow

Say the part in capitals loudest.

What does shallow mean?

1. adjectiveHaving little depth from top to bottom or from surface to floor.
2. adjectiveLacking depth of thought, feeling, or character.

Shallow in a sentence

• The children paddled in the shallow end of the pool.

• His apology felt shallow and rehearsed rather than sincere.

• The river is so shallow here that you can walk across it.

• The review dismissed the novel as shallow and forgettable.

Where does shallow come from?

Language of origin: Germanic

Shallow comes from the Middle English word schalowe, which described water or a vessel that was not deep. Its earlier history is a little hazy, but it is generally traced to Old English roots and is thought to be related to 'shoal', the word for a shallow stretch of water or a sandbank, both growing from the same Germanic sense of something low or thin. By the late 1300s the spelling had settled into forms close to the modern one, and the meaning broadened from physical depth to describe people and ideas that lack depth of thought or feeling. The double 'l' followed by '-ow' is the spelling trap here, echoing the pattern in 'fallow', 'hallow', and 'wallow'. Because the word is short and common, most writers spell it confidently once they remember the doubled consonant.

How the word is built

• shallow (single root, from Middle English schalowe meaning not deep); no separable prefix or suffix