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:
What he soon realized was that a tree thought to be in decent shape a year ago, was actually completely hollow and “on the edge of complete failure.”
From MarketWatch ● Oct. 1, 2026
“Lumpy close-out with hollow barrels with low tide, fam.”
From Los Angeles Times ● Sep. 14, 2026
Some hollow core fibers can be filled with gases or liquids, allowing them to map temperature distributions or even function as tiny laboratories for chemical experiments.
From Science Daily ● Aug. 22, 2026
To support Henry Bacon’s Parthenon-like building and Daniel Chester French’s colossal statue, builders had to sink 122 hollow steel cylinders deep into the marshy soil to reach bedrock, then fill each pillar with concrete.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Aug. 19, 2026
Nine tossed the last of his satchels into the tree hollow and heaved a patch of moss over the hole.
From "The Undead Fox of Deadwood Forest" by Aubrey Hartman
“There is no societal permission for an AI future that hollows out entire industries,” he wrote.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Jun. 20, 2026
Instead, they appeared along the sides of the ridges and within the sandy hollows between them.
From Science Daily ● Mar. 14, 2026
A nation that teaches fear as a civic virtue hollows itself out from within.
From Salon ● Dec. 21, 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
The gas still creeps over the ground and sinks into all hollows.
From "All Quiet on the Western Front: A Novel" by Erich Maria Remarque
That promise, insincere from the start, looks hollower every day.
From Slate ● Jun. 16, 2025
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
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
Yet of all the characters in our history Bolingbroke must be pronounced to be most of a charlatan; of all the writing in our literature, his is the hollowest, the flashiest, the most insincere.'
From The Age of Pope (1700-1744) by John Dennis
He imagines himself one of the most solid of men; he is essentially one of the hollowest.
From Stories by American Authors, Volume 5 by Henry James
"And that the hollowest of all," she said, turning the evidence of it in her pocket again.
From Doom Castle by Neil Munro
Head over heels in love with a man she met online, Helen's mother hollowed out a book and put £10,000 cash inside.
From BBC ● Sep. 29, 2026
Years of economic crisis, underinvestment and political turmoil have hollowed out once thriving communities, with many homes left empty thanks to mass emigration.
From Barron's ● Sep. 26, 2026
Office and retail properties suffered after urban downtowns were hollowed out by remote work.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Sep. 21, 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
He was like a statue being chiseled away from the inside, hollowed out.
From "Middlesex: A Novel" by Jeffrey Eugenides
“There’s essentially a hollowing out of the middle,” said Jared Walczak, senior fellow at the Tax Foundation.
From MarketWatch ● Aug. 5, 2026
Having promised to reverse what he called the "hollowing out" of the armed forces, the settlement Healey was offered on Monday was not enough for him.
From BBC ● Jun. 11, 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
But opaque AI loans and excessive leverage — ‘credit termites’ — are hollowing out the economy.
From The Wall Street Journal ● May 21, 2026
So he dug and dug into the rising snow with the goal of hollowing out a snow cave, a place to weather the terrible storm.
From "The Very, Very Far North" by Dan Bar-el
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.
