halcyon vs hollow

halcyon

adj
  • Calm, undisturbed, peaceful, serene. 

  • Pertaining to the halcyon or kingfisher. 

noun
  • The dead body of such a bird, said in Tudor times to act as a weather vane when hung from a beam. 

  • A kingfisher whose nesting by the sea was said, in classical mythology, to cause the Gods to restrain the wind and waves. 

  • A tropical kingfisher of the genus Halcyon, such as the sacred kingfisher (Halcyon sancta) of Australia. 

hollow

adj
  • Distant, eerie; echoing, reverberating, as if in a hollow space; dull, muffled; often low-pitched. 

  • Concave; gaunt; sunken. 

  • Insincere, devoid of validity; specious. 

  • Without substance; having no real or significant worth; meaningless. 

  • Pertaining to hollow body position 

  • Having an empty space or cavity inside. 

adv
  • Completely, as part of the phrase beat hollow or beat all hollow. 

verb
  • To call or urge by shouting; to hollo. 

  • to make a hole in something; to excavate 

noun
  • A sunken area or unfilled space in something solid; a cavity, natural or artificial. 

  • A sunken area. 

  • A small valley between mountains. 

  • A feeling of emptiness. 

How often have the words halcyon and hollow occurred in a corpus of books? (source: Google Ngram Viewer )