excavate
verb (used with object)
to make hollow by removing the inner part; make a hole or cavity in; form into a hollow, as by digging.
had been excavating
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past perfect progressiveof excavate.past perfect progressive
Used to describe an action that was ongoing continuously in the past up until another past event interrupted it.
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.
The archaeologists who were led to the cave in 2018 had been excavating early modern human sites in Laos’s lush Annamite Mountains for 15 years.
From Science Magazine ● May 17, 2022
Evidence of this prehistoric jaunt was reported last week by U.S. geologists who had been excavating hillside sediments that were once part of the lake.
From Time Magazine Archive
In that year, a blue-ribbon panel of researchers took a hard look at evidence presented by Tom Dillehay, then at the University of Kentucky, from a site he had been excavating in Monte Verde, Chile.
From Time Magazine Archive
Judith burst into angry expressions of wrath over the incompleteness of the cave which she and Arnold had been excavating together.
From The Bent Twig by Dorothy Canfield Fisher
It was at Beaumont-Hamel, under the Hawthorne Redoubt, that exactly at 7.30 a. m., the hour of attack, the British exploded a mine which they had been excavating for seven months.
From The Story of the Great War, Volume V (of 8) Battle of Jutland Bank; Russian Offensive; Kut-El-Amara; East Africa; Verdun; The Great Somme Drive; United States and Belligerents; Summary of Two Years' War by Allen L. (Allen Leon) Churchill
