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hollow noun A small, sheltered valley that usually but not necessarily has a watercourse. The term occurs often in place names, especially informal ones, as Hell’s Holler (NC) and Piedy Holler (TN). [DARE labels this pronunciation holler as “chiefly South, South Midland, especially Southern Appalachians, Ozarks”]

1736 (in 1940 McJimsey Topo Terms in VA 274) ... to two Poplars and a Chesnut in the hollow of a Mountain. 1799 (in 2008 Ellison High Vistas 38) We turned back and camped at a very bad place, it being a steep Laurelly hollow. 1863 Hundley CW Letters (Oct 11) We have moved up hear in the mountains where there is nothing But hills & hollows though I think it is A very good nieghbor Hood. 1915 Hall Claib Jones 8 I went up the hollow where I had left my gun, picked her up from against the tree, took my dog and went to the woods for my sport. 1939 Hall Coll (Saunook NC) He run me over a ridge and down the holler and over a ridge and down another holler to the river.1956 Fink That’s Why 3 Our hollow is very nearly the counterpart of the small canyon or arroyo of the West. 1984 Head Brogans 31 Usually called “holler” by the local residents, a hollow has been and still is the home for thousands of people. The residents of a particular hollow develop a feeling of belonging and will defend each other if necessary. If a strange car enters the hollow, the local grapevine soon spreads the word, especially if the car sports out-of-state tags! 2010 Jabbour and Jabbour Decoration Day 89 The rural coves comprise a different system, even if the residents relied on the larger towns as commercial centers. The word “cove” describes those narrower creek valleys that in other parts of the Appalachians, and often in western North Carolina, are called “hollows,” or “hollers.” Coves may contain arable bottomland, but usually less than in the larger river valleys. The coves are well suited for small subsistence farming augmented by modest cash crops, but less suitable for larger-scale commercial farming. The network of branches and creeks favors, or even dictates, a pattern of dispersed rural settlement. People of the coves did not cluster in tight villages; they spread out into small patches of arable land surrounded by woods. There they could combine subsistence gardening and farming with hunting and gathering from the surrounding woods and streams. That is the pattern of life that emerged in the nineteenth century.