shallow
/ˈʃæloʊ/
Word Rarity
Uncommon
Frequency: Zipf frequency 4.04 in modern English
13
Scrabble Score
7
Letters
2
Syllables
6
Unique Chars
Meaning
adj
Concerned mainly with superficial matters.
adj
adj
Not intellectually deep; not penetrating deeply; simple; not wise or knowing.
adj
Not steep; close to horizontal.
Example Sentences
- "This crater is relatively shallow."
- "Sauté the onions in a shallow pan."
- "The corpus is massive, being deeper anteriorly and shallowest where the ramus takes origin. The corpi of both sides are more closely spaced to each other than in the living form, and the symphysis is narrower."
- "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."
- "The water is shallow here."
- "It was a glamorous but shallow lifestyle."
Etymology
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.
Origin
Word Breakdown
- Root: *(s)kelh₁-, schalowe, *skal-
Regional Pronunciation
- American English: /ˈʃæloʊ/
- British English: /ˈʃæləʊ/
Usage
Inflected Forms
shallower (comparative)
more shallow (comparative)
shallowest (superlative)
most shallow (superlative)
shallows (plural)
shallows (present, singular)
shallowing (participle, present)
shallowed (participle, past)
shallowed (past)