What does it mean that God's name is hollowed?

Some Jews believe "God" should be hollowed—"G-d." There are a couple of different reasons for this.

It's widely understood that in an effort to not take the Lord's name in vain, Jews avoid using His name, YHWH, at all. Instead, they use the phrase "the Name," and Christian Bibles use "LORD." "G-d" is a similar practice, although "God" is not God's proper name.

Hebrew vowels are not characters but marks above or below the consonant, so removing the "o" is consistent with Hebrew.

Some Jews believe that Deuteronomy 12:4—"You must not worship the LORD your God in their way"—means they should not write God's name on anything that is likely to be destroyed or erased. The pagan shrines were to be obliterated, but not the worship of God. Writing it as "G-d" changes the English translation just enough to relieve people's conscience in case their writing is destroyed.

One can make the argument that the interpretation of Deuteronomy 12:4 is in error; we should not worship God by sacrificing children or starting a fertility cult. And, technically, the Jewish prohibition against writing God's name applies to a handful of variations of God's name in the original Hebrew, not the generic English translation "God."

But, that's okay. It's perfectly fine to use "G-d" as a sign of reverence. It's one way to remind ourselves that God's name is hallowed.

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