Definitions

from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 5th Edition.

  • adjective Measuring little from bottom to top or surface; lacking physical depth.
  • adjective Lacking depth of intellect, emotion, or knowledge.
  • adjective Marked by insufficient inhalation of air; weak.
  • adjective In the part of a playing area that is closer to home plate.
  • noun A part of a body of water of little depth; a shoal.
  • transitive & intransitive verb To make or become shallow.

from The Century Dictionary.

  • To make shallow; decrease the depth of.
  • To become shallow; decrease in depth: as, the water shallows rapidly as one approaches the bar.
  • Not deep; of little depth: as, a shallow brook; a shallow place; a shallow vessel or dish.
  • Not deep intellectually; superficial: as, a shallow person; a shallow mind.
  • noun A place where the water is not deep; a shoal; a shelf; a flat; a bank.
  • noun The rudd, a fish.

from the GNU version of the Collaborative International Dictionary of English.

  • adjective Not deep; having little depth; shoal.
  • adjective rare Not deep in tone.
  • adjective Not intellectually deep; not profound; not penetrating deeply; simple; not wise or knowing; ignorant; superficial.
  • transitive verb To make shallow.
  • intransitive verb To become shallow, as water.
  • noun A place in a body of water where the water is not deep; a shoal; a flat; a shelf.
  • noun (Zoöl.), Prov. Eng. The rudd.

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License.

  • adjective Having little depth; significantly less deep than wide.
  • adjective Extending not far downward.
  • adjective Concerned mainly with superficial matters.
  • adjective Lacking interest or substance.
  • adjective tennis Not far forward, close to the net
  • noun A shallow portion of an otherwise deep body of water.
  • verb To make or become less deep

from WordNet 3.0 Copyright 2006 by Princeton University. All rights reserved.

  • verb become shallow
  • verb make shallow
  • noun a stretch of shallow water
  • adjective lacking depth of intellect or knowledge; concerned only with what is obvious
  • adjective not deep or strong; not affecting one deeply
  • adjective lacking physical depth; having little spatial extension downward or inward from an outer surface or backward or outward from a center

Etymologies

from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 4th Edition

[Middle English schalowe.]

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License

From Middle English schalowe ("not deep, shallow"); apparently related to Old English sceald ("shallow"). See also shoal.

Support

Help support Wordnik (and make this page ad-free) by adopting the word shallow.

Examples

Comments

Log in or sign up to get involved in the conversation. It's quick and easy.

  • It's a fish.

    rudd

    January 3, 2012