excavate
Americanverb (used with object)
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to make hollow by removing the inner part; make a hole or cavity in; form into a hollow, as by digging.
The ground was excavated for a foundation.
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to make (a hole, tunnel, etc.) by removing material.
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to dig or scoop out (earth, sand, etc.).
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to expose or lay bare by or as if by digging; unearth.
to excavate an ancient city.
verb
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to remove (soil, earth, etc) by digging; dig out
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to make (a hole, cavity, or tunnel) in (solid matter) by hollowing or removing the centre or inner part
to excavate a tooth
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to unearth (buried objects) methodically in an attempt to discover information about the past
Other Word Forms
- excavation noun
- reexcavate verb (used with object)
- unexcavated adjective
Etymology
Origin of excavate
1590–1600; < Latin excavātus (past participle of excavāre to hollow out), equivalent to ex- ex- 1 + cav ( um ) hollow, cave + -ātus -ate 1
Example Sentences
Examples are provided to illustrate real-world usage of words in context. Any opinions expressed do not reflect the views of Dictionary.com.
Jones also worked as a scholar of history and made passionate efforts to excavate the satirical intentions of Chaucer’s “The Knight’s Tale” from beneath centuries of deadpan scholarship.
While studying livestock remains excavated from Arkaim in the 1980s and 1990s, Hermes and his colleagues noticed something unexpected.
From Science Daily
After his father’s death, Mr. Junod goes on a sort of genealogical quest, excavating Lou’s double and triple lives—mistresses, deceptions, suspicious deaths, ugly secrets—and more distant family history.
But a subject not participating in his biography is sometimes for the best: Skillful writers like Mr. O’Brien know how to find the tributaries where rich, untold material lies waiting to be excavated.
The fossils were excavated in a remote region of the central Sahara by a 20 member research team led by Paul Sereno, PhD, Professor of Organismal Biology and Anatomy at the University of Chicago.
From Science Daily
Definitions and idiom definitions from Dictionary.com Unabridged, based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2023
Idioms from The American Heritage® Idioms Dictionary copyright © 2002, 2001, 1995 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company.
