Word.ws English Dictionary

shallow

Syllables: shal·lowUK/ˈʃæləʊ//ˈʃæloʊ/

shallow adjective: having little depth; significantly less deep than wide.

Adjective

shallow (comparative shallower or more shallow, superlative shallowest or most shallow)

  1. Having little depth; significantly less deep than wide.
    • This crater is relatively shallow.
    • Sauté the onions in a shallow pan.
  2. Extending not far downward.
    • The water is shallow here.
  3. Concerned mainly with superficial matters.
    • It was a glamorous but shallow lifestyle.
  4. Lacking interest or substance; flat; one-dimensional.
    • The acting is good, but the characters are shallow.
  5. Not intellectually deep; not penetrating deeply; simple; not wise or knowing.
    • shallow learning
    • The king was neither so shallow, nor so ill advertised, as not to perceive the intention of the French king.1622, Francis, Lord Verulam, Viscount St. Alban [i.e. Francis Bacon], The Historie of the Raigne of King Henry the Seventh, […], London: […] W[illiam] Stansby for Matthew Lownes, and William Barret...
    Synonyms:
    skin-deep
  6. (obsolete) Not deep in tone.
    • the sound perfecter and not so shallow and jarring1627 (indicated as 1626), Francis [Bacon], “(please specify the page, or |century=I to X)”, in Sylua Syluarum: Or A Naturall Historie. In Ten Centuries. […], London: […] William Rawley […]; [p]rinted...
  7. Not far forward, close to the net.
    • Rosol spurned the chance to finish off a shallow second serve by spooning into the net, and a wild forehand took the set to 5-4, with the native of Prerov required to hold his serve for victory.2012 June 28, Jamie Jackson, “Wimbledon 2012: Lukas Rosol shocked by miracle win over Rafael Nadal”, in The Guardian
  8. Not steep; close to horizontal.
    • a shallow climb
    • a shallow descent

Noun

shallow (plural shallows)

  1. A shallow portion of an otherwise deep body of water.
    • The ship ran aground in an unexpected shallow.
    • A swift stream is not heard in the channel, but […]upon shallows of gravel.1627 (indicated as 1626), Francis [Bacon], “(please specify the page, or |century=I to X)”, in Sylua Syluarum: Or A Naturall Historie. In Ten Centuries. […], London: […] William Rawley […]; [p]rinted...
  2. A fish, the rudd.
  3. (historical) A costermonger's barrow.
    • You might have gone there quite as easily, and enjoyed yourself much more, had your mode of conveyance been the railway, or a hansom, or even a costermonger's shallow.1871, Belgravia, volume 14, page 213
  4. (slang) A shallow hotel pan.
    • Coordinate term: deep

Verb

shallow (third-person singular simple present shallows, present participle shallowing, simple past and past participle shallowed)

  1. (ambitransitive) To make or become less deep.
    • The shallowing of Cenozoic age-frequency curves from tropics to poles thus appears to reflect the decreasing probability for genera to reach and remain established in progressively higher latitudes ( 9 ).2009 February 6, Andrew Z. Krug et al., “Signature of the End-Cretaceous Mass Extinction in the Modern Biota”, in Science, volume 323, number 5915, →DOI, pages 767–771

Proper noun capitalized: Shallow

Shallow (plural Shallows)

  1. A surname.

shallow meaning in Hindi, Tamil, Marathi and Urdu

shallow in Hindi

having little depth and significantly less deep than wide
छिछला chichlā, उथला uthlā
extending not far downward
सतही sathī
concerned mainly with superficial matters
सतही sathī
shallow portion of an otherwise deep body of water
छिछला chichlā, उथला uthlā

shallow in Tamil

ஆழமில்லாத, மேலோட்டமாக

shallow in Marathi

shallow
उथळ uthaḷ

shallow in Urdu

shallow, trivial
سطحی sathī
shallow
چھوچھا chūchā
More languagesFewer languages
shallow in Bengali
অগভীর
shallow in Telugu
నిస్సారం, నిస్సార
shallow in Malayalam
ആഴമില്ലാത്ത
shallow in Kannada
ಆಳವಿಲ್ಲದ, ತೆಟ್ಟೆ, ಆಳವಾದ ಅರಿವಿಲ್ಲದ, ಪೊಳ್ಳು
shallow in Gujarati
ઉપરછલ્લું uparchallũ, ઉપલકિયું upalkiyũ, ઉપરચોટિયું uparcoṭiyũ, છીછરું chīchrũ
shallow in Odia
ଅଗଭୀର, ଅଗଭୀର |
shallow in Assamese
বাম bam
shallow in Nepali
उथलो
shallow in Tagalog
mababaw
shallow in Arabic
ضَحِل ḍaḥil
shallow in Indonesian
dangkal, dangkalan
shallow in Persian
چاله čāle, تنک tonok, تخت taxt
shallow in Thai
ตื้น dtʉ̂ʉn
shallow in Vietnamese
nông, cạn
shallow in Myanmar
တိမ် tim, ရေတိမ် retim

Examples of shallow in a sentence

  • a shallow bank angle
  • The corpus is massive, being deeper anteriorly and shallowest where the ramus takes origin.1977, Vincent J. Maglio, Dental and Skeletal Morphology of the Earliest Elephants, page 33:
  • The two shallower fibriscesses may represent lysis due to the spread of the infection that entered the phalanx at its presumed puncture wound, the deep fibriscess on the palmar surface.2016 February 25, “Record-Breaking Pain: The Largest Number and Variety of Forelimb Bone Maladies in a Theropod Dinosaur”, in PLOS ONE...
  • The planes then flew side by side with motors wide open in a very shallow climb[…].1922 July 24, Aviation Magazine:
  • If they come in too shallow, they will skip out and go into Earth orbit and not be able to return.1968 December 20, CBS Evening News:

All 40 example sentences with shallow

Synonyms of shallow

Antonyms

Forms of shallow

Adjective
comparativeshallower
comparativemore shallow
superlativeshallowest
superlativemost shallow
Noun
pluralshallows
Verb
third-person singular presentshallows
present participleshallowing
past participleshallowed
pastshallowed
Proper noun
pluralShallows

Plural of shallow: shallows

Origin of shallow

From Middle English schalowe (“not deep, shallow”); apparently related to Middle English schalde, schold, scheld, schealde (“shallow”), from Old English sċeald (“shallow”), from Proto-Germanic *skal-, from Proto-Indo-European *(s)kelh₁- (“to parch, dry out”). Related to Low German Scholl (“shallow water”). See also shoal.

Words formed from shallow

Phrases with shallow

Words that rhyme with shallow

Questions about shallow

What does shallow mean?
Shallow means having little depth; significantly less deep than wide.
What is shallow in Hindi?
Shallow in Hindi is छिछला (chichlā), उथला (uthlā), सतही (sathī). See Shallow meaning in Hindi.
How do you use shallow in a sentence?
a shallow bank angle
What part of speech is shallow?
Shallow can be an adjective, a noun, a verb or a proper noun.
How do you pronounce shallow?
Shallow is pronounced /ˈʃæləʊ/ (UK).

Words near shallow in the dictionary

  1. shalloons
  2. shallop
  3. shallops
  4. shallot
  5. shallots
  6. shallow
  7. Shallow Bay
  8. shallow brooks are noisy
  9. shallow copies
  10. shallow copy
  11. shallow cove

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: shallow (page history and authors); Shallow (page history and authors); shallow (Tamil Wiktionary) (page history and authors); उथळ (Marathi) (page history and authors); سطحی (Urdu) (page history and authors); Shallow (Bengali Wiktionary) (page history and authors); shallow (Telugu, IndicTrans2 machine translation) (model and license); shallow (Malayalam Wiktionary) (page history and authors); shallow (Kannada Wiktionary) (page history and authors); ઉપરચોટિયું (Gujarati) (page history and authors); shallow (Odia, IndicTrans2 machine translation) (model and license); বাম (Assamese) (page history and authors); shallow (Nepali, IndicTrans2 machine translation) (model and license). 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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Pronunciation audio from Wikimedia Commons, each file under its own free license: en-us-shallow.ogg.

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