borrow pit

American  

noun

Civil Engineering.

1. a pit from which construction material, as sand or gravel, is taken for use as fill at another location.

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borrow pit British  

noun

1. civil engineering an excavation dug to provide fill to make up ground elsewhere

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Etymology

Origin of borrow pit

First recorded in 1890–95

Example Sentences

Shifting into fifth gear, I straddled the centerline to correct the bevel toward the borrow pit and accelerated into triple digits.

From Salon • Oct. 22, 2022

A cutlass in excellent preservation and many other objects from 17th-century Jamestown were found in a large clay borrow pit filled with refuse.

From New Discoveries at Jamestown Site of the First Successful English Settlement in America by Cotter, John L.

He said, "Yes, dirt from this borrow pit will make the fill across this bottom."

From Northern Nut Growers Association Report of the Proceedings at the 43rd Annual Meeting Rockport, Indiana, August 25, 26 and 27, 1952 by Northern Nut Growers Association

They used a borrow pit somewhere else, and it gives me a great pleasure to drive past that group of hickory trees and see them still standing there.

From Northern Nut Growers Association Report of the Proceedings at the 43rd Annual Meeting Rockport, Indiana, August 25, 26 and 27, 1952 by Northern Nut Growers Association

It may be placed in a jhil, a paddy field, or a borrow pit by the railway line.

From A Bird Calendar for Northern India by Dewar, Douglas