English

Noun

hallow ‎(plural hallows)

1. (archaic or dialectal) A 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").

Derived terms

• Hallow-day
• hallowdom
• hallowed
• Halloween, Hallow-eve
• Hallow-fair
• Hallowmas, Hallowmass
• Hallow-tide

Translations

Etymology 2

From Middle English halwen ‎(“to hallow, sanctify”), from Old English hālgian ‎(“to hallow, sanctify, make holy”), from Proto-Germanic *hailagōną ‎(“to make holy”), from *hailagaz ‎(“holy”), from Proto-Germanic *hailaz ‎(“whole, safe, hale”), from Proto-Indo-European *koil- ‎(“safe, unharmed”). Cognate with Dutch heiligen ‎(“to hallow”), German heiligen ‎(“to bless”). More at holy.

Verb

hallow ‎(third-person singular simple present hallows, present participle hallowing, simple past and past participle hallowed)

1. (transitive) To make holy, to sanctify.
   • c 1599, William Shakespeare, s:The Life of Henry the Fifth, Act 1, Scene II

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

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

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

Translations

Etymology 3

From Middle English halowen, from halow ‎(interjection), from Old English ēalā ‎(“O!, alas!, oh!, lo!”, interjection), probably conflated with Old French halloer.

Alternative forms

• halow, alow, a lo (obsolete)
• hallo, hollo

Verb

hallow ‎(third-person singular simple present hallows, present participle hallowing, simple past and past participle hallowed)

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

Noun

hallow ‎(plural hallows)

1. A shout, cry; a hulloo.
   • 1777, Robin Hood's Chase, reprinted in
     2003, Francis James Child, The English and Scottish Popular Ballads, Courier Dover Publications, ISBN 0486431479, page 206:

     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.

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

     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.

Etymology 4

Adjective

hallow ‎(comparative more hallow, superlative most hallow)

1. Alternative spelling of hollow
   • 1902, National Council of Geography Teachers (U.S.), The Journal of Geography, National Council for Geographic Education, page 93:

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

   • 2003, George A. Lyall, To a Different Drummer: A Family's Story, Xlibris Corporation, ISBN 1401072860, pages 208:

     But it was not a hallow victory.