excavate
Americanverb (used with object)
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excavates,
present (3rd person singular)
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excavated,
past participle, past
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excavating
present participle
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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
Derived Forms
Inflected Forms
Participles
Conjugated Forms
Present
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excavatesimple
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excavatessimple
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have excavatedperfect
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has excavatedperfect
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am excavatingprogressive
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are excavatingprogressive
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is excavatingprogressive
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have been excavatingperfect progressive
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has been excavatingperfect progressive
Past
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excavatedsimple
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had excavatedperfect
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was excavatingprogressive
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were excavatingprogressive
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had been excavatingperfect progressive
Future
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
Explanation
To excavate is to remove or find by digging. If you have rocky soil in your garden, you may have to excavate it to remove the rocks and replace them with additional soil. Construction crews also excavate when they remove material from the ground. Workers slowly excavate subways tunnels using explosives to break up the rock and earth. Then the workers clear away the materials, hollowing out a tunnel as they go. It often takes a lot of time and effort to excavate. But most people would agree a new subway line is dynamite!
Vocabulary lists containing excavate
Power Prefix: ex-
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Holes
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100 SAT Words Beginning with "E"
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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.
See Examples For:
His best work tunneled into life’s darkest spaces to excavate ideas about our fears and obsessions, often reflected through dazzling practical effects that matched the naturalism of his greatest feature: a singularly expressive, malleable face.
From Salon ● Jul. 17, 2026
To excavate biblical Palestine was, in his mind, to restore Jewish sovereignty over the Jewish story.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Jun. 7, 2026
The intersection remained closed Sunday as crews worked to excavate and repair the line.
From Los Angeles Times ● May 25, 2026
In 2022, Sereno returned with a 100-person team and 64 Nigerien guards to excavate the "earth-shattering site".
From Barron's ● Feb. 27, 2026
In 1995 archaeologists began to excavate a site in south-east Turkey called Göbekli Tepe.
From "Sapiens: A Brief History of Humankind" by Yuval Noah Harari
In her 1987 essay, “The Site of Memory,” she utilized a river as a metaphor to discuss how imagination excavates forgotten histories and people.
From Los Angeles Times ● Jul. 2, 2026
In a breezy, sun-soaked 90 minutes, Romvari excavates a lifetime of knotted, intergenerational trauma — a phrase that almost feels too heavy and too burdened by cryptic implications, given how this movie explores it.
From Salon ● May 25, 2026
Translated from the Spanish by Christina MacSweeney, Ms. Rivera Garza’s book is a fusion of fiction and nonfiction that excavates both national and family history.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Jan. 29, 2026
His team excavates the rubble with care, aware that they are searching for fragments of broken humanity.
From BBC ● Jan. 23, 2025
Whether a bird excavates its nest in earth or wood, or weaves or plasters it, the work is all done by means of two straight pieces of horn—the bill.
From The Log of the Sun A Chronicle of Nature's Year by William Beebe
Boxgrove has been extensively excavated, and researchers have uncovered many tools made from flint, bone and antler there.
From Science Daily ● Jul. 27, 2026
On Thursday, workers excavated a 3-by 4-foot area to find the source of the water, plugged the leak and resumed preparing the street to open.
From Los Angeles Times ● Jul. 24, 2026
Within weeks, imagery from Airbus revealed a neatly paved road leading to freshly excavated entrances.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Jul. 23, 2026
The impact would have instantly excavated the crater while blasting huge volumes of rock, sediment, and seawater into the atmosphere.
From Science Daily ● Jun. 30, 2026
As is the case with all excavated shipwrecks, the story of the Mary Rose does not end with its recovery from the ocean floor.
From "Shipwrecked!" by Martin W. Sandler
The discovery comes from the Lingjing archaeological site, where researchers have spent more than 10 years excavating animal bones and sophisticated stone tools linked to an extinct human relative called Homo juluensis.
From Science Daily ● May 9, 2026
It would require combat troops to secure perimeters, engineers with excavating equipment to search through debris and check for mines and booby traps, and special-operations forces with expertise in handling nuclear material.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Mar. 27, 2026
Opening drawers, peering into the fridge, excavating the freezer.
From Salon ● Jan. 11, 2026
He said Butyagin had ensured conservation and preservation of the site he was excavating.
From BBC ● Dec. 25, 2025
The Cahokians' solution to this problem was discovered mainly by Woods, the University of Kansas archaeologist and geographer, who has spent two decades excavating Monks Mound.
From "1491" by Charles C. Mann
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.
