Online OXFORD Collocation Dictionary

shadow noun

ADJ. dark, dense, deep, strong The house lay in dark shadow. | giant, long | grotesque, monstrous, sinister, strange, terrible | dancing, flickering

VERB + SHADOW cast, make, produce, throw The boat's sail cast a shadow on the water. Use a desk light to produce a strong shadow. The candles on the table threw huge flickering shadows against the wall. | fill sth with ~s The streets were now filled with terrible shadows. | emerge from, loom up out of, step out from/of ~s Suddenly a huge figure loomed up out of the shadows. | move into, shrink into, slip (back) into ~s She shrank back into the shadows as the footsteps approached. | lurk in, wait in, watch from criminals lurking in the shadows

SHADOW + VERB fall, lie The evening shadows were beginning to fall. Deep shadows lay across the small clearing where they sat. | get longer, lengthen As the shadows lengthened, the men drifted home for their tea. | dance, leap, move, pass the leaping shadows of the flames The shadows of the clouds passed over us.

PREP. among the ~s an odd shape among the shadows | in the ~s I could just make out a figure in the shadows. | into the ~s I backed into the shadows until the police car had passed. | in ~ His face was in shadow. | into ~ The storm clouds threw the mountain peaks into dense shadow. | from/out of the ~s A huge figure stepped out of the shadows. | through the ~s the fears that kept crowding in on her as she hurried through the shadows

PHRASES live in the shadow of sb/sth (often figurative) She had always lived in the shadow of her older sister.