hallow

plural hallows

1. obsolete outside set phrasesA saint; a holy person; an apostle.

   All Hallows Eve (or Halloween), the night before All Hallows Day (now more commonly known as "All Saints' Day").

2. in pluralobsoleteThe relics or shrines of saints or non-Christian gods.

   To seek hallows: to visit relics or shrines, in the belief that the saints themselves are present there.

present singular third person hallows · participle present hallowing · participle past hallowed · past hallowed

1. transitiveTo make holy, to sanctify.

   Come hallow the goblet with something more true / Than words we forget in a minute.

   1847, Charles Swain, Dramatic Chapters: Poems and Songs, D. Bogue, page 324

   1 more example

   […]I am coming on, to venge me as I may and to put forth my rightful hand in a well-hallow'd cause.

   1599 (date written), William Shakespeare, “The Life of Henry the Fift”, in Mr. William Shakespeares Comedies, Histories, & Tragedies […] (First Folio), London: […] Isaac Iaggard, and Ed[ward] Blount, published 1623, →OCLC, [Act I, scene ii]

present singular third person hallows · participle present hallowing · participle past hallowed · past hallowed · alternative obsolete halow · alternative obsolete alow · alternative obsolete a lo · alternative hallo · alternative hollo

1. To shout, especially to urge on dogs for hunting.

   […] for the conversation (if it may be called so) was seldom such as could entertain a lady. It consisted chiefly of hallowing, singing, relations of sporting adventures, b—d—y, and abuse of women, and of the government.

   1749, Henry Fielding, chapter IV, in The History of Tom Jones, a Foundling, volume III, London: A[ndrew] Millar, […], →OCLC, book VII

plural hallows · alternative obsolete halow · alternative obsolete alow · alternative obsolete a lo · alternative hallo · alternative hollo

1. A shout, cry; a hulloo.

   Then away they went from merry Sherwood / And into Yorkshire he did hie / And the King did follow, with a hoop and a hallow / But could not come him nigh.

   1777, Robin Hood's Chase, reprinted in 2003, Francis James Child, The English and Scottish Popular Ballads, Courier Dover Publications, page 206

   1 more example

   I told them, the sherriff could not be admitted on board this time of night, on which they set up a hallow and rowed as fast as they could towards the vessel's bows.

   1772, William Read Staples, The Documentary History of the Destruction of the Gaspee, Knowles, Vose, and Anthony, published 1845, page 14

comparative more hallow · superlative most hallow

1. alternativenonstandardAlternative spelling of hollow.

   But it was not a hallow victory.

   2003, George A. Lyall, To a Different Drummer: A Family's Story, Xlibris Corporation, →ISBN, page 208

   1 more example

   If the sun were a hallow sphere of its present size and the earth were placed at the center[...]. Such a hallow sphere would hold more than a million balls the size of the earth.

   1902, National Council of Geography Teachers (U.S.), The Journal of Geography, National Council for Geographic Education, page 93