all hollow
1
9.9
- idiom
:
vacío
- In truth, it is all hollow, arduous, exhausting, bleak, and boring.
Examples
-
Even her laughter seemed all hollow, echoing without any true joy behind it.
-
I drove into the lot to turn my car around; this place seemed closed, this place seemed empty, and this place seemed all hollow inside.
Blog text (20) -
These things are all hollow gestures without love.
Academic text (2007) -
All hollow.
Fiction book (1991) -
His compliments felt all hollow because they lacked any real sincerity.
-
The politician's promises were all hollow, failing to address the real issues at hand.
Synonyms
351
3.7
Feeling like you have no feelings inside
64
5.5
Empty inside and not sincere or meaningful
11
5.3
Having no useful ideas or emotion
5
8.1
Having no real meaning or importance
Having nothing inside, like an empty box
Antonyms
How Genuine
Surface Forms
Morphology
Here 'all' functions as an intensifier meaning 'entirely' or 'completely' and 'hollow' means lacking genuine value; their combination yields 'completely lacking substance' in a directly compositional way. This intensifier + adjective pattern is grammatically regular and cross-linguistically common, so a B1 learner who knows both constituents should be able to infer the meaning.
Etymology
All hollow uses all to show 'completely' and hollow to mean empty inside, like a shiny box or a log that looks solid but has nothing inside. So when words or praise are all hollow, they are 'completely insincere' or have no real value.