Word.ws English Dictionary

hollowed out

hollowed out is the simple past and past participle of hollow out.

Meaning of hollow out

Verb

hollow out (third-person singular simple present hollows out, present participle hollowing out, simple past and past participle hollowed out)

  1. (transitive) To make something hollow.
    • After we have crossed the Glenderamackin stream, which drains the northern slopes of Saddleback, and the latter has united with the St. John's Beck to form the Greta, however, we see ahead the miniature canyon the Greta has hollowed out for itself, and into the depth of which the train now descends.1961 October, Voyageur, “The Cockermouth, Keswick & Penrith Railway”, in Trains Illustrated, page 601
    Synonyms:
    cave, spoon
  2. (intransitive) To become hollow.
  3. (transitive) To reduce the power or influence of something.

Adjective

hollowed out (not comparable)

  1. That has been hollowed out, that has been made hollow.
    • [F]or I may as well say at once that these hollowed-out caves were nothing more nor less than vast catacombs, in which for tens of ages the mortal remains of the great extinct race whose monuments surrounded us had been first preserved[.]1886 October – 1887 January, H[enry] Rider Haggard, She: A History of Adventure, London: Longmans, Green, and Co., published 1887, →OCLC

Forms of hollowed out

alternative formhollowed-out

Questions about hollowed out

What does hollowed out mean?
Hollowed out means that has been hollowed out, that has been made hollow.
What is hollowed out the simple past and past participle of?
Hollowed out is the simple past and past participle of hollow out.
What part of speech is hollowed out?
Hollowed out is an adjective.

Words near hollowed out in the dictionary

  1. hollowbacks
  2. Hollowcause
  3. Hollowcaust
  4. Hollowcost
  5. hollowed
  6. hollowed out
  7. hollowed-out
  8. Hollowell
  9. Hollowells
  10. hollower
  11. hollowers

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: hollowed out (page history and authors); hollow out (page history and authors). Text available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 license. Word.ws reformatted the entry and added links. Wiktionary data of 2026-09-02.

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Cite this entry: “hollowed out.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/hollowed_out. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.