exhume
Americanverb (used with object)
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exhumes,
present (3rd person singular)
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exhumed,
past participle, past
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exhuming
present participle
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to dig (something buried, especially a dead body) out of the earth; disinter.
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to revive or restore after neglect or a period of forgetting; bring to light.
to exhume a literary reputation; to exhume old letters.
verb
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to dig up (something buried, esp a corpse); disinter
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to reveal; disclose; unearth
don't exhume that old argument
Other Word Forms
Derived Forms
Inflected Forms
Participles
Conjugated Forms
Present
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exhumesimple
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exhumessimple
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have exhumedperfect
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has exhumedperfect
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am exhumingprogressive
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are exhumingprogressive
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is exhumingprogressive
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have been exhumingperfect progressive
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has been exhumingperfect progressive
Past
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exhumedsimple
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had exhumedperfect
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was exhumingprogressive
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were exhumingprogressive
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had been exhumingperfect progressive
Future
Etymology
Origin of exhume
1400–50; late Middle English < Medieval Latin exhumāre, equivalent to Latin ex- ex- 1 + humāre to inter
Explanation
When you see your mysterious neighbor digging around in his backyard, you may wonder if he’s trying to exhume something. Chances are he’s only digging up potatoes — when you exhume something, it means you’re digging up a corpse. The word exhume traces back to the Latin word exhumare, a combination of ex-, meaning “out of,” and humus, or “ground.” That meaning holds true today: when you exhume something, you dig it up out of the ground. The word almost always applies to the removing of a previously buried corpse, such as law enforcement officials who exhume a body to perform an autopsy or collect evidence related to an investigation.
Vocabulary lists containing exhume
The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks
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Beloved
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This Week in Words: July 22 - 29, 2017
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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:
The government sought to exhume Dossett’s body for a more-thorough autopsy.
From The Wall Street Journal ● May 1, 2026
"The safest place to keep the DNA samples is buried separately in the ground, and marked clearly," Zein al-Abdeen told AFP, "or we'll exhume the bodies again later."
From Barron's ● Apr. 27, 2026
If Arizona’s 21st century Supreme Court justices wish to exhume an obscure 19th century predecessor from the recesses of history, that’s their prerogative.
From Los Angeles Times ● Apr. 18, 2024
She informs Pozner that the only way she’ll believe him is if he agrees to exhume Noah’s body.
From Salon ● Mar. 26, 2024
Shady could get almost nothing to exhume an almost- unknown pile of rocks on the coast.
From "1491" by Charles C. Mann
He’s also working on a memoir, titled “Seek, Memory,” in a nod to Vladimir Nabokov, that exhumes memories he has repressed for most of his adult life.
From New York Times ● Feb. 21, 2021
Still, founded on prodigious research, it convincingly impugns key tenets of Bugliosi’s narrative and exhumes a trove of provocative data.
From Los Angeles Times ● Jul. 12, 2019
“In 1945 our parents went away and left us,” the British narrator begins, and decades later, he exhumes their secrets from the mire of espionage and war.
From Washington Post ● Nov. 13, 2018
It exhumes a specifically French struggle between communal identity and ethnic difference, kindled by the Dreyfus Affair a century ago.
From Slate ● Apr. 13, 2017
Under the mist that the sun illumes, She, where her terraces arise And taper to the terraced skies, Herself as from a dream exhumes.
From Contemporary Belgian Poetry Selected and Translated by Jethro Bithell by Various
Many of the thousands left in unmarked graves were exhumed for proper burial.
From BBC ● Aug. 27, 2026
“Resurrectionists” – body snatchers – exhumed the recently buried, disproportionately targeting the poor, the institutionalized and those without family protection or the financial means to guard graves.
From Science Daily ● Jun. 21, 2026
Most of those exhumed and reburied in Khartoum are identified, Zein al-Abdeen said, by families who buried their loved ones themselves but needed authorities to give them a proper resting place.
From Barron's ● Apr. 27, 2026
New England’s last supposed vampire was exhumed in 1892.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Oct. 21, 2025
They burned it in one of the pots, and the stench was like a corpse exhumed for its bones too soon.
From "The Woman Warrior" by Maxine Hong Kingston
Shortages in material and equipment — including body bags — meant that exhuming and reburying all the remaining corpses around Khartoum exceeded his agency’s resources, al-Abidin said.
From Los Angeles Times ● Apr. 12, 2026
Many found a city with barely functioning services, their homes destroyed and neighbourhoods pockmarked by makeshift cemeteries authorities are now exhuming.
From Barron's ● Jan. 11, 2026
By exhuming the past, he hopes to redeem it and salvage, if only briefly, all he has lost.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Dec. 19, 2025
This is in addition to the voluminous effort spanning six nights and 12 hours that reasserts, among many truths, Burns’ dedication to exhuming the rocky facts buried underneath convenient mythmaking.
From Salon ● Nov. 15, 2025
It was on my hands and in my mouth, and my food crackled with it; my eyes were full of it, after days of examining it, exhuming stones like bone.
From "The Astonishing Life of Octavian Nothing, Traitor to the Nation, Volume I: The Pox Party" by M.T. Anderson
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.
