hollow vs trepan

hollow

verb
  • to make a hole in something; to excavate 

  • To call or urge by shouting; to hollo. 

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. 

adj
  • Concave; gaunt; sunken. 

  • Insincere, devoid of validity; specious. 

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

  • 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. 

trepan

verb
  • To create a large hole by making a narrow groove outlining the shape of the hole and then removing the plug of material remaining by less expensive means. 

  • To use a trepan; to trephine. 

noun
  • A tool used to bore through rock when sinking shafts. 

  • A surgical instrument used to remove a circular section of bone from the skull; a trephine. 

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