Definition of shallow in English:
shallow
See synonyms for shallowTranslate shallow into Spanish
adjective
1Of little depth.
‘serve the noodles in a shallow bowl’- ‘being fairly shallow, the water was warm’
- ‘I grow this prehistoric plant in a shallow bowl of water.’
- ‘Plan on shelf space tall enough for large cereal boxes and drawers shallow enough to allow you to easily find small bags and boxes.’
- ‘Meantime, the Russian Navy is trying to pull the sub to shallow waters.’
- ‘There have even been a few documented cases of dolphins supporting drowning swimmers to shallow water.’
- ‘Do you know how shallow the water is here?’
- ‘Each pair of gloves is mounted in a shallow pine box lined with beaded and embroidered wedding fabric and fitted with a lid that has an oval cutout.’
- ‘They were covered over slightly, like a shallow puddle that manages to reflect the sky while still being able to see to the bottom.’
- ‘For the custard, preheat the oven to 300 degrees and line a shallow baking pan with plastic wrap.’
- ‘Long, shallow cuts lined her cheeks and forehead, and at one or two places, there were deep gouges.’
- ‘Roll the pastry into a large rectangle and line a shallow baking tray.’
- ‘He was speeding south over flat plains, shallow rivers, lines of trees and teeny signs of civilization.’
- ‘The five nodded their understanding before giving a shallow bow.’
- ‘These greyish, shallow erosions in the surface of the tongue and cheeks are inflamed and painful, especially when you eat hot, spicy food.’
- ‘Cool slightly and turn out onto a shallow sided dish.’
- ‘The casserole is fairly shallow with a large surface area allowing maximum evaporation.’
- ‘They have created roughly parallel blocks flanked by shallow canals that are actually slightly above harbour level.’
- ‘Evenly broadcast the seeds over an area of the bed or sprinkle them in a shallow furrow.’
- ‘Kate quickly pulled out a shallow chest from beneath her bed and dumped the contents onto the floor.’
- ‘That night he made his way out of town and bedded down on the edge of a shallow gully.’
- ‘The narrow, deep lakes, so named because they look like the fingers of a hand, were carved by Ice Age glaciers, which deposited shallow topsoil on sloping shale beds above the lakes.’
- 1.1Situated at no great depth.‘the shallow bed of the North Sea’
- ‘The shallow depths where fertilizer is placed are dry under drought situations, which limits nutrient uptake.’
- ‘Heavy equipment or materials such as pallets of payers can squash a tree's shallow surface roots.’
- 1.2Varying only slightly from a specified or understood line or direction, especially the horizontal.‘a shallow roof’
- ‘A shallow gabled roof covered with translucent fiberglass shelters the area from rain and drizzle without blocking the light.’
- ‘The hall is shaded by a shallow half-hat of a roof which leaves a crescent-shaped interstice between it and the edge of the big carapace.’
- ‘Arranged in a radial pattern, the stone arches are crowned by a shallow domed roof clad in panels of green pre-patinated copper.’
- ‘As the resort's rules demand, walls are sculpted out of white rendered masonry, and there is a shallow thatched roof.’
- ‘The metal balcony is propped from the rubble wall, and is an addition to traditional forms, as is the shallow pyramid of the roof.’
- ‘For a shallow pitch roof, however, the three tabs is a reasonable choice.’
- ‘Her roof has the same shallow hip but is turned up like a basin with a butterfly profile.’
- ‘The second was the notion that the project was considered an extension of the city floor, a ramped surface of shallow slopes.’
- ‘Architecturally they incorporate the low roofs, polygonal towers and shallow, semicircular domes of the Byzantine mode.’
- ‘If the spaceship goes in at too shallow a plane, it will bounce off and just fly off into outer space.’
- ‘The den was situated at the top of a shallow hill.’
- 1.3Not exhibiting, requiring, or capable of serious thought.‘a shallow analysis of contemporary society’
- ‘This is one reason I described his analysis as shallow.’
- ‘Fifth, the book's discussion of the Asian crisis seems shallow compared to its analysis of Japanese capitalism.’
- ‘The errors are patent and they are explicable by what we say is a rather shallow analysis of the admissible value of those utterances in the record of interview.’
- ‘People may disagree on how deep / shallow it really is, but the scintillating buzz is pretty undeniable.’
- ‘They were both beautiful, popular people and their pairing had only seemed natural to everyone else despite how shallow I thought Mandy was.’
- ‘I was going to go home and fix my face, hide it with makeup and hope that Brendan wasn't shallow enough to break up with me because I was temporarily ugly.’
- ‘Was he the only one who could tell how shallow she was?’
- ‘He also happened to be rather handsome, but I wasn't that shallow.’
- ‘Tara resented the implication that she would be that shallow.’
- ‘She was supposed to be the one who wasn't shallow and who wasn't concerned with ‘status’ and such.’
- ‘She likes to pretend she's that shallow, but she really isn't.’
- ‘But then again, did he truly believe that all women on earth were that shallow?’
- ‘I got to know her pretty well and realized that she wasn't really shallow.’
- ‘Your friends think I'm just that shallow, because they don't see it and I let them.’
- ‘As they open up to each other about their woes, neither seems to recognise how monstrously selfish and shallow they appear.’
- ‘I know my sister isn't gullible or dumb, so this fact only served to prove to me how shallow she is.’
- ‘People are vain and shallow and disregard the love of others to pursue their own whims.’
- ‘Critics such as La Font de Saint-Yenne and Diderot began to label the work of many of their contemporaries shallow, frivolous, and licentious.’
- ‘However theologically shallow it may be, however, there was a definite thought and reasoning behind it.’
- ‘It's a little shallow that way, but yet one of our guiltiest pleasures.’
superficial, facile, glib, simplistic, oversimplified, schematic, slight, flimsy, insubstantial, lightweight, empty, trivial, triflingView synonyms - 1.4(of breathing) taking in little air.‘Jewel's breathing was shallow as she held back tears.’
- ‘Soon, she could hear the shallow breathing of people.’
- ‘His eyes were closed and his breathing was shallow.’
- ‘His breathing was shallow and his face was flushed.’
- ‘The next minute his partner's heart was racing, his breathing was shallow, and he wouldn't respond to anything Jim said, or shouted.’
- ‘He paused abruptly and David opened his eyes slowly; lowering his arms down, he listened to the man's shallow breathing as he muttered something barely audible.’
- ‘His shallow breathing seemed to echo throughout the room.’
- ‘I was pressed up against him and my breathing was shallow.’
- ‘His breathing was shallow, even, and mathematically perfect, each breath as large as the last, drawn out for the same amount of time.’
- ‘He was trembling and his breathing was shallow and shaky.’
- ‘Jasmin's breathing was shallow and her face flushed.’
- ‘She heard her tent mates' shallow breathing in their repose.’
- ‘His breathing was shallow, and his eyes were tightly closed.’
- ‘Her breathing is shallow as she tries to keep from crying.’
- ‘She'd looked terribly pale and her breathing was very shallow.’
- ‘There was no reply save for the whelpling's shallow breathing.’
- ‘His breathing quickened, his breaths shallow and shaky, as if each one might be his last.’
- ‘She pushed forward, rolling like a treadmill, trying to make her breaths shallow to preserve her air supply.’
- ‘Dave sank down and sat on her front steps, breaths shallow, as though he was trying not to cry.’
- ‘His breathing quickened, his breaths shallow and shaky, as if each one might be his last.’
Pronunciation
noun
shallowsAn area of the sea, a lake, or a river where the water is not very deep.
‘To see for yourself, inspect the shallows at a pond or pool where the water is clear but also sports some vegetation.’- ‘The trout here also seem to prefer the deep pools during the day and venture out into the shallows only when the sun is off the water.’
- ‘The world of Holodrum is a land filled with season sensitive elements such as spring blooming flowers, snow covered caves as well as summer sapped shallows of water and pits clogged with autumn falling leaves.’
- ‘Taking Danny's hand the nurse led him into the shallows of the water.’
- ‘As summer had progressed, the weather had become sunnier and the water in the shallows of the bay had warmed up for swimming.’
- ‘Caelyn walked around in the cool shallows of the water with Justin at her side.’
- ‘The components of Friedrich's seascapes are here in a fresh guise: figures gazing at a moonlit sea from rocky shallows at its edge.’
- ‘Those on the front line of the hauling ropes stood knee deep in the shallows.’
- ‘She lay with her chin on her forearms, deliciously amused at the sight of Wolf plunging through the shallows, growling like an amphibious tiger.’
- ‘Down by the water, kids are playing tag on a long, sandy beach and splashing in the brisk, gin-clear shallows of Redfish Lake.’
- ‘These elusive creatures live in sea-grass meadows, mangrove forests, and other secret shallows in the ocean.’
- ‘There was a rank smell, not the smell of dead flesh but something older and colder, like something prised out of a shell in the shallows of a tide pool.’
- ‘The tall cottonwood trees along the bluffs and in the shallows of the river swayed violently in the wind and several snapped in half.’
- ‘When she was done crying, she left with the baby to go and let Andrea swim in the shallows of the pond.’
- ‘He moved forward cautiously until a man came into view crouched in the shallows of the river.’
- ‘The rest of the class graduated to the deep end, while I hung around the shallows or clung to the side of the pool.’
- ‘He waded into the shallows and collapsed in knee deep water.’
- ‘She walked along the banks of the lake, watching a water snake slither in the shallows.’
- ‘We swam to the shore and in every shallow we stopped.’
- ‘In and out of the shingle shallows the fish tried to find escape.’
Pronunciation
intransitive verb
[no object](of the sea, a lake, or a river) become less deep over time or in a particular place.
‘the boat ground to a halt where the water shallowed’- ‘Since then, the channel shallowed and the docks silted in.’
- ‘A much larger area at the north end of the lake is approximately 24 m deep, shallowing to the south.’
- ‘The airplane's nose dropped through the horizon and speed started increasing to a bit more than 150 knots, then the nose started climbing and the bank angle shallowed out.’
- ‘Golden sunlight slanted across dark blue water, ruffled here and there with white lace or streaked brown with mud where it shallowed, but the central channel was wide and deep.’
- ‘Their pessimism is based on the condition of Jakarta's rivers, which have been shallowed and now mostly function as dumps for people living along the riverbanks.’
- ‘Further in, the tunnel narrowed and shallowed slightly, until at 30m there was a distinct murky halocline.’
Pronunciation
Origin
Late Middle English obscurely related to shoal.
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