How to Use hollow in a Sentence

hollow

1 of 4 adjective
  • There was a hollow spot in the field.
  • But some songs are hollow to a fault.
    — Billie Bugara, Pitchfork, 10 Feb. 2026
  • Alysa Liu wore a hollow smile on the ice.
    — Los Angeles Times, 5 Feb. 2026
  • That’s not to say that the concert felt hollow.
    — Valerie Trapp, The Atlantic, 20 Sep. 2025
  • Unlike a bird, a bat's wing bones are not hollow.
    — Kirsten Fiscus, Nashville Tennessean, 24 Oct. 2025
  • But my house had started to feel hollow.
    — Laura Pevehouse, The Spruce, 31 Mar. 2026
  • Just a hollow stillness and sense of guilt.
    — Reem Kassis, The Atlantic, 11 Oct. 2025
  • Give it a few taps and listen for a hollow sound as a last check.
    — Christine Fiorentino, Better Homes & Gardens, 30 June 2026
  • White seeds are just the hollow shells of black seeds that didn’t mature.
    — Jill Schildhouse, Southern Living, 13 June 2026
  • The spots become hollow with age.
    — Steve Bender, Southern Living, 10 Mar. 2026
  • The stems of green onions are also hollow, with a slight crunch when fresh.
    — Aly Walansky, Southern Living, 5 Jan. 2026
  • Make up a whole new world inside our cozy hollow tree hideaway.
    — ABC News, 14 Dec. 2022
  • The loaves should also sound hollow when tapped on the bottom.
    — Becky Krystal, Washington Post, 8 Mar. 2023
  • But for many Netanyahu’s words rang hollow.
    — Kara Fox, CNN Money, 14 Oct. 2025
  • Nas is no stranger to flex raps, but his blockchain bars have the hollow ring of a timeshare sales pitch.
    — Dash Lewis, Pitchfork, 8 Jan. 2026
  • The shift knob is hollow, which Ford says helps keep it cool in warmer weather.
    — Jack Fitzgerald, Car and Driver, 9 Feb. 2023
  • Gratitude can feel hollow when stress is high.
    — Jennifer Jay Palumbo, Forbes.com, 28 Jan. 2026
  • This time, though, the hills aren’t hollow, and the industry knows it.
    — Kate Knibbs, WIRED, 22 Nov. 2023
  • But both of those points are completely hollow.
    — Marlow Stern, Variety, 28 Apr. 2026
  • Once the flow stops, long hollow tunnels remain.
    — Aamir Khollam, Interesting Engineering, 15 Aug. 2025
  • That means that my over-five-hundred-year-old yellow birch that is hollow will stay.
    — Literary Hub, 23 Apr. 2026
  • Gray foxes may use wood piles, hollow trees, or brush piles as dens, says Pierce.
    — Arricca Elin Sansone, Southern Living, 16 Apr. 2026
  • Gray foxes may use wood piles, hollow trees, or brush piles as dens, says Pierce.
    — Arricca Elin Sansone, Southern Living, 1 Dec. 2025
  • Gray foxes may use wood piles, hollow trees, or brush piles as dens, says Pierce.
    — Arricca Elin Sansone, Southern Living, 6 Aug. 2025
  • Because this chime is hollow, rain and snow will pass right through and won’t warp the wooden frame.
    — Kate McGregor, Better Homes & Gardens, 24 Mar. 2023
  • Power in Britain has never felt as hollow as this.
    — Sam Knight, New Yorker, 14 May 2026
  • And how hollow is a democracy that treats prayer as a public threat?
    — Lois McLatchie Miller, MSNBC Newsweek, 20 Aug. 2025
  • But one of the things that is sad is that those hallowed spaces are also hollow.
    — Dana Taylor, USA TODAY, 25 Feb. 2024
  • All of that tugging and smooshing can make your voice sound hollow or muddy.
    — Shira Ovide, Washington Post, 13 Dec. 2022
  • The bets were massive—and built on a hollow foundation of bad loans.
    — Stephane Lintner, Fortune, 2 May 2023

hollow

2 of 4 noun
  • The owls nested in the hollow of a tree.
  • My birds across the hollow had not uttered a note.
    — Charles Elliott, Outdoor Life, 2 Apr. 2026
  • Make a deep hollow in the center of the flour with the back of your hand.
    — Compiled By Celestina Blok, star-telegram, 6 Sep. 2017
  • To do so, start by sucking in your cheeks to find out where the hollows of your face are.
    — Devon Abelman, Allure, 13 June 2018
  • The living room was like an igloo with a proud hollow for a fireplace.
    — Bono, Vogue, 5 Nov. 2022
  • Rover drivers must guide it across ridge tops and then down into sandy hollows.
    — Ryan Brennan, Kansas City Star, 4 Mar. 2026
  • The second shade is a pitch black to carve out the hollows of your face like a pumpkin.
    — Devon Abelman, Allure, 27 Sep. 2017
  • The rolling landscape means that some parts of the 35-acre grounds sit in windswept hollows.
    — John Kelly, Washington Post, 22 July 2019
  • This week's quiz highlights haunted hollows, game-day glory — and much more.
    — Kelly McGreal , Khloe Quill, FOXNews.com, 26 Oct. 2025
  • There are hollows filled with evergreens and rushing streams.
    — Peter Marteka, courant.com, 9 Oct. 2019
  • The coconut octopus was sitting in a small hollow in the sand.
    — Alan Taylor, The Atlantic, 20 Feb. 2024
  • But at the fringe of the hollow, there was no room for hypotheticals.
    — Ira Gorawara, New York Times, 28 Feb. 2026
  • This is a week for moving into the caves and hollows, into the spaces where the light gets dim.
    — Claire Comstock-Gay, The Cut, 11 Sep. 2017
  • The music opens up echoey hollows and a sudden stretch of loud distortion.
    — Jon Pareles, New York Times, 2 Feb. 2018
  • Females attach their eggs to the insides of tree hollows, which hold pools of water.
    — National Geographic, 20 Jan. 2016
  • Then, apply your contouring shade about a fourth of an inch higher than the hollows.
    — Devon Abelman, Allure, 13 June 2018
  • Rotund ewes are sometimes prone to getting pinned upside down in hollows by their own weight.
    — Literary Hub, 23 Apr. 2026
  • To really add depth to the look, contour the hollows of your cheekbones.
    — Allure Editors, Allure, 28 Aug. 2017
  • Using a sponge, apply the dark contour to the hollows of your cheeks, sides of your nose, and edges of your face.
    — Jessica Teich, USA TODAY, 26 Oct. 2017
  • If the shadow disappears, your dark circle is caused by a hollow.
    — Danielle Sinay, Glamour, 7 Sep. 2022
  • They were known to have swallowed four-inch stones to grind up their food, and females made one-egg nests in hollows in the ground.
    — National Geographic, 15 May 2018
  • People were murdered, their bodies burned or thrown into hollows in the ground.
    — Elisabeth Åsbrink, Time, 21 Apr. 2020
  • Still, others will make their show in your neighbor’s garden or the hollow of some old oak tree at the edge of the woods.
    — Paul Cappiello, The Courier-Journal, 22 Oct. 2021
  • The first man, emerging from the hollow of a bamboo, found water, tubers, fine clay and resin.
    — Anvita Abbi, Scientific American, 16 May 2023
  • On the back porch, the rolling green of the hollow holds the B&B as if in the palm of its meadowy hand.
    — Sarah Henry, Louisville Courier Journal, 13 Oct. 2025
  • In the hills and hollows, cows and horses graze uphill and down, at odd angles, in the fields of huge ranches.
    — Charles P. Pierce, Esquire, 11 Dec. 2017
  • Last year, a deluge of rain touched off flash floods that surged through the hollows of eastern Kentucky.
    — Christopher Flavelle, BostonGlobe.com, 11 July 2023
  • For Suárez, those arguments ring hollow.
    — Kate Linthicum, Los Angeles Times, 12 Jan. 2026
  • That single number makes every record-high headline ring hollow.
    — Kam Shenai, The Orlando Sentinel, 21 June 2026
  • There are Mercury hollows, structures that appear to be unique to the planet.
    — David Grossman, Popular Mechanics, 5 July 2017

hollow

3 of 4 verb
  • They hollowed the log to make a canoe.
  • Both had been hollowed by insects.
    — Paul Eisenberg, Chicago Tribune, 15 June 2026
  • Otherwise, hollow out a few eggs, grab the paint, and get to work!
    — Jessica Cherner, House Beautiful, 24 Jan. 2023
  • First, carve a wide mouth out of the top of a large gourd and then thoroughly hollow it out.
    — Miranda Crowell, Better Homes & Gardens, 7 Oct. 2025
  • Some of the buildings were hollowed out with broken glass in the lobby.
    — Brett Murphy, USA Today, 9 Jan. 2020
  • Take the tea out of a tea bag, hollow it out and stand it up, and (carefully) take a match to it.
    — Marisa Lascala, Good Housekeeping, 1 June 2022
  • Streets have hollowed out, and stores were closing — leaving them with few food options.
    — Tatiana Sanchez, SFChronicle.com, 18 Mar. 2020
  • Just hollow out the apples, fill with cider, and drink through cinnamon-stick straws!
    — Woman's Day Kitchen, Woman's Day, 27 Aug. 2020
  • The easiest way to hollow out this area is with a small Forstner drill bit, on a drill press.
    — Bradley Ford, Popular Mechanics, 12 Jan. 2023
  • The rush to let anyone with a bank account big enough into the sport has made these kinds of actions hollow.
    — Alex Shephard, The New Republic, 25 Feb. 2022
  • The crisis has revealed hollowed out public health care across the region.
    — Scott Peterson, The Christian Science Monitor, 9 Apr. 2020
  • Above the church, cliffs, hollowed out like a beehive, served as Incan grain silos.
    — Finn-Olaf Jones, WSJ, 7 June 2018
  • Ladder trucks trained broad streams of water into the hollowing shell.
    — Los Angeles Times, 5 Mar. 2023
  • Part of what has kept that myth and has perhaps grown that myth is the side effect of the middle class being hollowed out.
    — Chris Quintana, USA Today, 10 Mar. 2020
  • Use a spoon or melon baller to hollow out a little hole, taking care not to poke all the way through to the other end.
    — Jais Tollette, USA TODAY, 1 Nov. 2022
  • The pests kill the trees by burrowing into the bark and hollowing out the insides.
    — Sarah Bowman, Indianapolis Star, 17 Aug. 2017
  • That has hollowed out both the middle class in big cities and the economic engine in smaller cities.
    — Kevin Quealy, New York Times, 2 Dec. 2019
  • That, in the end, is what separates productive worry from the kind that hollows you out.
    — Angela Haupt, Time, 8 May 2026
  • Simply hollow out the core, sauté it in brown sugar and butter, add it back in to the apple and wrap it all up in pie dough.
    — People Staff, Peoplemag, 17 Nov. 2022
  • To prepare it, hollow out a loaf of French bread, then fill with breakfast favorites like eggs, sausage, and cheese.
    — Sarah Martens, Better Homes & Gardens, 26 Aug. 2022
  • But as time goes on, and more and more dollars flow out while more and more goods come in, the country starts hollowing itself out.
    — Clem Chambers, Forbes.com, 4 Aug. 2025
  • Or is extreme affluence a sort of benign virus that can only hollow out the diverse life of a city.
    — Danny Westneat, The Seattle Times, 13 July 2018
  • To achieve that, Tinsley hollowed out Cage’s eyes and gave his lips shadowing.
    — Jazz Tangcay, Variety, 6 Apr. 2023
  • The idea is to hollow out armored troop carriers to hold more than a thousand gallons of water.
    — Steven Levy, WIRED, 11 June 2018
  • Justin hollowed out the pumpkin to harvest the seeds and then decided to have some fun with the kids, Christin said.
    — Amanda Jackson, CNN, 22 Oct. 2019
  • At the same time, the ranks of part-time rural firefighters have been hollowed out as the population leaves.
    — National Geographic, 11 Dec. 2019
  • Their shells are embroidered on costumes, hollowed out and made into rattles, or used as the body of guitars.
    — Rachel Fobar, National Geographic, 22 Feb. 2019
  • Sweet onions are hollowed and filled with stock, spices, and butter, then baked until tender for a simple and deeply savory side dish.
    — Alana Al-Hatlani, Southern Living, 9 Apr. 2026
  • This is achieved by hollowing out the center of the spiral, so half the sound wave goes through the spiral and half goes though a central tube.
    — Chris Lee, Ars Technica, 14 Apr. 2020
  • Then choose an entrance (ideally one facing away from the wind), and start digging your hole to hollow out the inside.
    — Megan Michelson, Outside Online, 25 Oct. 2022

hollow

4 of 4 adverb
  • Whirlpool’s pledge to keep jobs in Amana rings hollow to laid off workers like Dawson.
    — Nathaniel Meyersohn, CNN Money, 19 Mar. 2026
  • The claim of a market failure should ring hollow to American sports professionals.
    — Chris Deubert, Forbes.com, 7 Aug. 2025
  • That rings hollow considering Martinez’s long history of taking actions that have also stoked fear in the Jewish community.
    — Kevin Wilk, Mercury News, 12 Jan. 2026
  • The idea of Pax Americana has always rung hollow to some people, including citizens of countries that have been attacked by the United States itself.
    — Peter Harris, The Conversation, 28 Jan. 2026
  • And with that, McAfee uttered the phrase that has rung hollow as the Hurricanes chase a national title that has eluded them since 2001 for the third time during the three-hour pregame show.
    — Jordan McPherson, Miami Herald, 21 Sep. 2025
  • Western appeals to the principles of sovereignty, territorial integrity, and the autonomy of nations start to ring hollow when the country that anchors the West sets out to violate those principles so brazenly.
    — Simon Shuster, The Atlantic, 21 Jan. 2026
  • Perhaps this rang hollow after recent headlines about Roblox CEO David Baszucki floating the idea of the platform attracting more adult users by offering online dating services.
    — Miles Klee, Rolling Stone, 25 Aug. 2025
  • However, her comments ring hollow in comparison to the president’s remarks from the Oval Office on Thursday alongside Finnish President Alexander Stubb.
    — Ashleigh Fields, The Hill, 11 Oct. 2025
  • The government’s offers of dialogue with the protesters ring hollow as it is meant as a pressure valve internationally—for credulous Westerners who believe Iran’s political system is capable of reform—and domestically.
    — Washington Post, 5 Jan. 2026

Some of these examples are programmatically compiled from various online sources to illustrate current usage of the word 'hollow.' Any opinions expressed in the examples do not represent those of Merriam-Webster or its editors. Send us feedback about these examples.

Last Updated: