hollow
Americanadjective
-
hollower,
comparative
-
hollowest
superlative
-
having a space or cavity inside; not solid; empty.
a hollow sphere.
-
having a depression or concavity.
a hollow surface.
-
sunken, as the cheeks or eyes.
-
(of sound) not resonant; dull, muffled, or deep.
a hollow voice.
-
without real or significant worth; meaningless.
a hollow victory.
-
insincere or false.
hollow compliments.
-
hungry; having an empty feeling.
I feel absolutely hollow, so let's eat.
noun
-
hollows
plural
-
an empty space within anything; a hole, depression, or cavity.
-
a valley.
They took the sheep to graze in the hollow.
-
Foundry. a concavity connecting two surfaces otherwise intersecting at an obtuse angle.
verb (used with object)
-
hollows,
present (3rd person singular)
-
hollowed,
past participle, past
-
hollowing
present participle
-
to make hollow (often followed byout ).
to hollow out a log.
-
to form by making something hollow (often followed byout ).
to hollow a place in the sand;
boats hollowed out of logs.
verb (used without object)
-
hollows,
present (3rd person singular)
-
hollowed,
past participle, past
-
hollowing
present participle
adverb
idioms
adjective
-
having a hole, cavity, or space within; not solid
-
having a sunken area; concave
-
recessed or deeply set
hollow cheeks
-
(of sounds) as if resounding in a hollow place
-
without substance or validity
-
hungry or empty
-
insincere; cynical
-
the capacity to eat or drink a lot without ill effects
adverb
noun
-
a cavity, opening, or space in or within something
-
a depression or dip in the land
verb
-
to make or become hollow
-
to form (a hole, cavity, etc) or (of a hole, etc) to be formed
Other Word Forms
Derived Forms
Inflected Forms
Nouns
Adjectives
Participles
Conjugated Forms
Present
-
hollowsimple
-
hollowssimple
-
have hollowedperfect
-
has hollowedperfect
-
am hollowingprogressive
-
are hollowingprogressive
-
is hollowingprogressive
-
have been hollowingperfect progressive
-
has been hollowingperfect progressive
Past
-
hollowedsimple
-
had hollowedperfect
-
was hollowingprogressive
-
were hollowingprogressive
-
had been hollowingperfect progressive
Future
Etymology
Origin of hollow
First recorded before 900; Middle English holow, holw(e), Old English holh “a hollow place”; akin to hole
Explanation
If something is hollow, it is empty on the inside. A chocolate Easter bunny looks like so much chocolate until you realize that it is hollow and quickly eaten. The idea of emptiness is apparent in the other uses for hollow too. A valley between mountains is called a hollow and if you're really thin, you may have hollow cheeks. Things like words and promises are hollow if the person uttering them does not intend to keep them. And a hollow victory is not very satisfying, as it means that you have reached your goal, but lost something more important along the way.
Vocabulary lists containing hollow
The SAT: Words to Capture Tone, List 5
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The New SAT: Words to Capture Tone
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Excerpt from "The Adventures of Tom Sawyer"
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Example Sentences
Examples are provided to illustrate real-world usage of words in context. Any opinions expressed do not reflect the views of Dictionary.com.
See Examples For:
It’s a hollow provocation over a royalty-free riddim.
From Salon ● Aug. 6, 2026
The line is like Nolan nudging his audience to say, check this out: a human pyramid of Greek commandos packed into a dark hollow.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Jul. 20, 2026
"Now they tell me he will be gone -- my heart feels hollow."
From Barron's ● Jul. 15, 2026
At the same time, generations of owls continually deposited bones throughout the cave, providing countless hollow tooth sockets that solitary bees could use.
From Science Daily ● Jul. 5, 2026
The instant I saw the log a plan jumped right out of the hollow end and bored its way into my monkey-troubled mind.
From "Summer of the Monkeys" by Wilson Rawls
These sand-filled hollows are designed to cause golfers trouble.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Apr. 4, 2026
Instead, they appeared along the sides of the ridges and within the sandy hollows between them.
From Science Daily ● Mar. 14, 2026
Abandoning a cult is relatively easy compared to unplugging from a hive; although deprogramming can be an arduous process, a hive mind hollows out everything but our skins.
From Salon ● Dec. 29, 2025
These include tree planting or the digging of dips and hollows into the landscape, but are often hampered because a large proportion of river catchments are on private land.
From BBC ● Dec. 9, 2025
“What’s changed about hollows that they can get into loops now?”
From "Hollow City" by Ransom Riggs
It’s hollower than a tweet asking for thoughts and prayers.
From Los Angeles Times ● Jan. 15, 2025
Were the words that the cast spoke and sung hollower than they’d been 2½ weeks ago?
From Washington Post ● Jun. 26, 2022
Itgen isn’t sure why larger genomes lead to hollower hearts.
From Scientific American ● Feb. 2, 2022
In Kong: Skull Island, he’s bigger—much bigger, so much so that he could stand eye-to-antenna with the Empire State Building without needing to scale it—but he’s hollower, too.
From Slate ● Mar. 9, 2017
Then the clicking of its spikes against the stone suddenly turned into a deeper, hollower sound.
From "The Maze Runner" by James Dashner
In a world sorely lacking global leadership, champions of human rights stand poised to earn only the hollowest of victories.
From Washington Post ● Dec. 20, 2018
Vice President Hubert H. Humphrey was nominated for the presidential race, but it was the hollowest of victories.
From Washington Times ● Aug. 27, 2018
The hollowest of all gospels is the gospel of ease and comfort.
From Character by Smiles, Samuel
You can never call me that again, without feeling it the hollowest pretence!
From A Beautiful Alien by Magruder, Julia
The idea that literature is a mere matter of writing is seen to be the hollowest of misconceptions the moment you run over any list of enduring names.
From Vanishing Roads and Other Essays by Le Gallienne, Richard
Prime Minister Andy Burnham said town centres had been "hollowed out" by decades of decline and "for many people, the high streets they grew up with have become unrecognisable".
From BBC ● Aug. 10, 2026
Second, it hollowed out Congress’ power to enforce our constitutional promise of racial equality at the polls, insisting that Congress lacked the power to do more than prohibit purposeful racial discrimination.
From Slate ● Jul. 8, 2026
"Wall cabinets, sofas, coffee tables, dining tables, and chairs vanished in an instant. It was as if the entire building had been hollowed out," Wang told the Xiaoxiang Morning Herald.
From Barron's ● Jul. 7, 2026
Meanwhile, they overheard their parents fret that society might be forever hollowed out.
From Los Angeles Times ● May 28, 2026
They were like the eyes of the animals at the natural history museum, who were hollowed out and stuffed and posed and placed in some habitat and made to look like they were still alive.
From "Breadcrumbs" by Anne Ursu
The cause of the commotion stands frozen and alert at the end of a hollowing log.
From BBC ● Aug. 8, 2026
L.A.’s declining share of a contracting film and television industry is hollowing out its middle class, a group Pratt rarely talks about when homelessness is not at issue.
From Slate ● Jun. 3, 2026
Other credit bureaus are noting a similar hollowing out of the middle.
From MarketWatch ● May 4, 2026
What will the hollowing out of its military leadership mean for China on the world stage?
From The Wall Street Journal ● Mar. 8, 2026
I made a place for fire in the floor of my house, hollowing it out and lining it with rocks.
From "Island of the Blue Dolphins" by Scott O'Dell
Definitions and idiom definitions from Dictionary.com Unabridged, based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2023
Idioms from The American Heritage® Idioms Dictionary copyright © 2002, 2001, 1995 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company.
