hollow ache
- noun
- Literature
:
dolor vacío
- When Cecilia bent to pick a handful of plastic bags out of the cooler, Hugh glimpsed the cleft between her breasts and felt a hollow ache.
It carves through you, leaving a hollow ache where love once resided.
- It carves through you, leaving a hollow ache where love once resided.
Examples
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After the breakup, she was left with a hollow ache in her chest that wouldn't go away.
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It carves through you, leaving a hollow ache where love once resided.
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His heart felt a hollow ache whenever he remembered their happy times together.
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The news of her passing left him with a hollow ache, a feeling of emptiness inside.
Synonyms
A deep, steady feeling of pain or longing that often comes from sadness
Antonyms
How Painful
Surface Forms
Morphology
The sense is largely derivable from combining 'hollow' (empty/desolate) with 'ache' (a prolonged pain), so a learner knowing both words can infer an emptiness-like, persistent pain. However, because the phrase is typically used in an emotional or figurative sense rather than a straightforward physical description, understanding requires metaphorical inference and is not fully predictable.
Etymology
Hollow ache gives a clear picture: a hollow is an empty space and an ache is a long pain, so imagine an empty place in your chest that keeps hurting. That's why the phrase is used for 'a deep, empty pain', often an emotional one.