hollowing

Pluralhollowings

1. 1
   verb

   Present participle and gerund of hollow.

   The river is slowly hollowing the limestone beneath the old bridge.

   Hollowing the trunk by fire was a common way to build a boat.

   Note

   One spelling carries two unrelated verbs: hollow meaning to dig out or excavate, and hollow as a variant of hollo, to call or urge on by shouting. As a participle it builds progressives (the river is hollowing the limestone). As a gerund it heads a phrase that works as a noun (hollowing the trunk by fire). Context decides which verb is meant, though the digging sense is the one most readers expect.

2. 2
   nouncountable or uncountable

   The process of making or becoming empty on the inside, or the result of that process.

   The hollowing of the old oak left a cavity big enough for an owl to nest in.

   Years of erosion produced a gradual hollowing along the base of the cliff.

   Note

   A word that hovers between process and outcome, with context deciding which. In descriptive science it often names the result. Dirk Nolf and James C. Tyler (2007) use it for a feature of fish otoliths, where cavity or concavity would come close. When the process is meant, hollowing out is the common alternative. As a countable noun it takes a plural, hollowings, for separate instances.

3. 3
   nouncountable or uncountable

   The act of shouting or calling out loudly; a shout or cry.

   The hollowing of the hunters echoed through the valley as the chase began.

   A great hollowing went up from the dock when the ship came into view.

   Similarshouting, hollering, shout, cry, clamor

   Note

   A shout spelled like an excavation. It comes from hollow in its sense "to hollo," a cousin of halloo and holler, the same verb that gives the participle its double meaning. It counts naturally in the plural, as in Johann Ludwig Burckhardt's Travels in Nubia (1819), where the "distant hollowings of our watermen" carry across the river. Where readers might picture digging, hallooing or hollering is the clearer choice.

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