excavator

[ eks-kuh-vey-ter ]

noun

1. a person or thing that excavates.
2. a power-driven machine for digging, moving, or transporting loose gravel, sand, or soil.
3. a sharp, spoonlike instrument used for scraping out diseased tissue, as in dentistry.

Word History and Origins

Origin of excavator¹

First recorded in 1805–15; excavate + -or ²

Example Sentences

One that comes to mind is I took my friend’s car, lowered it into a pool with an excavator, told him about it.

From Ozy

Because most cities are built in layers, with older structures gradually buried beneath the new, excavators must destroy the upper layers to reach further back in time.

From MIT Technology Review

Projects are often complex, and involve excavators and bulldozers to shore up streambanks using giant boulders or to construct brand-new channels.

From Science News

Workers operating a tractor or an excavator while installing a drainage tile, a house foundation, or a new pipeline, perhaps, come upon an abandoned line.

From Popular-Science

But, in light of Polly’s great-grandfather’s work as a famous excavator of myths, a la Joseph Campbell, we might also see such coincidences as reflections of a larger, more intricate design than the tangled branches of one family tree.

From Washington Post

Nearby, a yellow Caterpillar excavator sits idle next to an opening that once led into a cross-border tunnel.

From The Daily Beast

One interesting case study is Sir Arthur Evans, the original excavator and “restorer” of the Minoan palace of Knossos on Crete.

From The Daily Beast

If they are Ancients and dead then let them be buried and left to the archæological excavator.

From Project Gutenberg

He must have been an erudite excavator, but, in literature, a reader only of recent minor poetry.

From Project Gutenberg

That is, he said he was an excavator, but I never saw anything before that looked at all like him.

From Project Gutenberg

The Red Ant (Myrmica rubra) plies, according to circumstances, the trade of a mason or excavator.

From Project Gutenberg

The steam shovel, or steam excavator, is a modified form of dredge adapted for excavating material on dry land.

From Project Gutenberg

Related Words

• backhoe
• bulldozer
• digger