excavation
Americannoun
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excavations
plural
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a hole or cavity made by excavating.
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the act of excavating.
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an area in which excavating has been done or is in progress, as an archaeological site.
Synonym Usage
See hole.
Other Word Forms
Derived Forms
Inflected Forms
Nouns
Etymology
Origin of excavation
First recorded in 1605–15; from Latin excavātiōn- (stem of excavātiō ) “a hollowing.” See excavate, -ion
Explanation
Excavation is the act or process of digging, especially when something specific is being removed from the ground. Archaeologists use excavation to find artifacts and fossils. There are many types of excavation, but they all involve digging holes in the earth. Mining for coal, gold, or diamonds all require excavation, and before buildings and houses can be built, there is often some excavation that's done before a foundation can be poured. The Latin source of excavation is excavationem, "a hollowing out," from excavare, "to hollow out," with its roots of ex-, "out," and cavare, "to hollow."
Vocabulary lists containing excavation
The Alchemist
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Written in Bone
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Island of the Blue Dolphins
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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:
Overnight rain and rising river waters also hampered rescue operations on Sunday, filling the excavation area with water before conditions eased, the Nepali army said.
From Barron's ● Aug. 31, 2026
Those still searching are increasingly turning to deeper excavation.
From BBC ● Aug. 22, 2026
Grossi also visited a previously undisclosed site for storing graphite and the location where the reactor stood in eastern Syria, where excavation work is taking place.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Aug. 18, 2026
Emily Lindsey, curator and excavation site director at the La Brea Tar Pits’ center, said the discovery of the ice age toad is an example of the ongoing discoveries being made at the museum.
From Los Angeles Times ● Aug. 7, 2026
The excavation of the Mary Rose yielded one of the largest and most amazing arrays of artifacts ever recovered.
From "Shipwrecked!" by Martin W. Sandler
"For 60 years, he has lived amid the excavations and introduced thousands of visitors to the history of Urartu."
From Barron's ● Aug. 10, 2026
However, it is important to remember that the vast majority of fossils found during excavations are fragmentary.
From Science Daily ● Aug. 10, 2026
Kusman was hired as a labourer on the Cavustepe excavations after his military service in the 1960s and there encountered his first stele.
From Barron's ● Aug. 10, 2026
"Restoration work has now begun along with excavations," he says.
From BBC ● Aug. 8, 2026
In carrying out their underwater discoveries and excavations, Bass and his colleagues introduced groundbreaking inventions and techniques that greatly advanced how marine archaeology is conducted.
From "Shipwrecked!" by Martin W. Sandler
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.
