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
Because the wreck lies so deep in the sea, it will probably take years before the equipment is in place to excavate it.
From "Shipwrecked!" by Martin W. Sandler
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
The Declaration’s audacious promise that all are created equal, a vow Mr. Amar excavates with the precision of an archaeologist and the flair of a storyteller.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Dec. 12, 2025
His team excavates the rubble with care, aware that they are searching for fragments of broken humanity.
From BBC ● Jan. 23, 2025
“Heroes” excavates a stratum of white America with the same incisive probing that “Slave Play” brought to its investigation of our country’s interracial foundation.
From Los Angeles Times ● Aug. 22, 2023
This species excavates its den in soft, sandy soil.
From Life History of the Kangaroo Rat by Charles Taylor Vorhies
But this was the first time in his career that he had been part of a team that excavated an entirely unbroken pottery vessel from a terrestrial site.
From Science Daily ● Aug. 22, 2026
Freshly excavated caverns 100m underground sit next to stores that have been used for sparkling wine, apples and cheese in recent years.
From BBC ● Aug. 18, 2026
The brighter streaks that hug the crater's rim were fresh material excavated from deeper underground.
From Barron's ● Aug. 18, 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
Some areas looked like they’d been excavated, but most of the city just seemed abandoned, as if it had been left to the elements for the last two thousand years.
From "The House of Hades" by Rick Riordan
Now, he's excavating his diary to write about his rural upbringing and experiences of working in Las Vegas casinos.
From BBC ● Aug. 21, 2026
For Morrison, writing fiction was a form of “literary archaeology,” excavating history, and how the past hovers over the present.
From Los Angeles Times ● Jul. 2, 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
After excavating more than 100 tons of fossils over the years, he added, "If you can brave the elements and are willing to go after the unknown, you might just uncover a lost world."
From Science Daily ● Feb. 23, 2026
Each of us chose a trough and dug into it like a dog excavating a prized bed of flowers, our cupped hands scooping mounds of ice onto the floor.
From "Miss Peregrine's Home for Peculiar Children" by Ransom Riggs
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.
