shallow

adjective shallower · more shallow · shallowest · most shallow

1. Having little depth; significantly less deep than wide. This crater is relatively shallow.
2. Extending not far downward. The water is shallow here.
3. Concerned mainly with superficial matters. It was a glamorous but shallow lifestyle.
4. Lacking interest or substance; flat; one-dimensional. The acting is good, but the characters are shallow.
5. Not intellectually deep; not penetrating deeply; simple; not wise or knowing. shallow learning

   Similar: skin-deep

6. obsolete Not deep in tone. the sound perfecter and not so shallow and jarring
7. Not far forward, close to the net. Rosol spurned the chance to finish off a shallow second serve by spooning into the net, and a wild forehand took the set to 5-4, with the native of Prerov required to hold his serve for victory.
8. of an angle Not steep; close to horizontal. a shallow climb

Similar: shallow, superficial · Opposite: deep

noun shallows

1. A shallow portion of an otherwise deep body of water. The ship ran aground in an unexpected shallow.
2. A fish, the rudd.
3. historical A costermonger's barrow. You might have gone there quite as easily, and enjoyed yourself much more, had your mode of conveyance been the railway, or a hansom, or even a costermonger's shallow.
4. slang A shallow hotel pan. Coordinate term: deep

verb shallows · shallowing · shallowed

1. ambitransitive To make or become less deep. The shallowing of Cenozoic age-frequency curves from tropics to poles thus appears to reflect the decreasing probability for genera to reach and remain established in progressively higher latitudes ( 9 ).

proper noun Shallows

1. A surname.