excavate

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ex·ca·vate

(ĕk′skə-vāt′)

v. ex·ca·vat·ed, ex·ca·vat·ing, ex·ca·vates

v.tr.

1. To make a hole in; hollow out: excavate an ore-rich hillside.

2. To form by hollowing out.

3. To remove by digging or scooping out.

4. To expose or uncover by or as if by digging: excavate an archaeological site.

v.intr.

To engage in digging, hollowing out, or removing.

[Latin excavāre, excavāt-, to hollow out : ex-, ex- + cavāre, to hollow (from cavus, hollow; see keuə- in Indo-European roots).]

American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fifth Edition. Copyright © 2016 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. All rights reserved.

excavate

(ˈɛkskəˌveɪt)

1. to remove (soil, earth, etc) by digging; dig out

2. to make (a hole, cavity, or tunnel) in (solid matter) by hollowing or removing the centre or inner part: to excavate a tooth.

3. (Archaeology) to unearth (buried objects) methodically in an attempt to discover information about the past

[C16: from Latin excavāre, from cavāre to make hollow, from cavus hollow]

ˌexcaˈvation n

ˌexcaˈvational adj

Collins English Dictionary – Complete and Unabridged, 12th Edition 2014 © HarperCollins Publishers 1991, 1994, 1998, 2000, 2003, 2006, 2007, 2009, 2011, 2014

ex•ca•vate

(ˈɛks kəˌveɪt)

v.t. -vat•ed, -vat•ing.

1. to form into a hollow, as by digging: The ground was excavated for a foundation.

2. to make (a hole, tunnel, etc.) by removing material.

3. to dig or scoop out (earth, sand, etc.).

4. to expose or lay bare by or as if by digging; unearth.

[1590–1600; < Latin excavātus, past participle of excavāre to hollow out]

excavate

Past participle: excavated
Gerund: excavating

Imperative
excavate
excavate

Present
I excavate
you excavate
he/she/it excavates
we excavate
you excavate
they excavate

Preterite
I excavated
you excavated
he/she/it excavated
we excavated
you excavated
they excavated

Present Continuous
I am excavating
you are excavating
he/she/it is excavating
we are excavating
you are excavating
they are excavating

Present Perfect
I have excavated
you have excavated
he/she/it has excavated
we have excavated
you have excavated
they have excavated

Past Continuous
I was excavating
you were excavating
he/she/it was excavating
we were excavating
you were excavating
they were excavating

Past Perfect
I had excavated
you had excavated
he/she/it had excavated
we had excavated
you had excavated
they had excavated

Future
I will excavate
you will excavate
he/she/it will excavate
we will excavate
you will excavate
they will excavate

Future Perfect
I will have excavated
you will have excavated
he/she/it will have excavated
we will have excavated
you will have excavated
they will have excavated

Future Continuous
I will be excavating
you will be excavating
he/she/it will be excavating
we will be excavating
you will be excavating
they will be excavating

Present Perfect Continuous
I have been excavating
you have been excavating
he/she/it has been excavating
we have been excavating
you have been excavating
they have been excavating

Future Perfect Continuous
I will have been excavating
you will have been excavating
he/she/it will have been excavating
we will have been excavating
you will have been excavating
they will have been excavating

Past Perfect Continuous
I had been excavating
you had been excavating
he/she/it had been excavating
we had been excavating
you had been excavating
they had been excavating

Conditional
I would excavate
you would excavate
he/she/it would excavate
we would excavate
you would excavate
they would excavate

Past Conditional
I would have excavated
you would have excavated
he/she/it would have excavated
we would have excavated
you would have excavated
they would have excavated

Collins English Verb Tables © HarperCollins Publishers 2011

ThesaurusAntonymsRelated WordsSynonymsLegend:

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Verb	1.	excavate - recover through digging; "Schliemann excavated Troy"; "excavate gold" unearth bring out, reveal, uncover, unveil - make visible; "Summer brings out bright clothes"; "He brings out the best in her" dig out, dig up, dig - remove, harvest, or recover by digging; "dig salt"; "dig coal"
	2.	excavate - find by digging in the ground; "I dug up an old box in the garden" dig up, turn up grub out, grub up - dig up; "grub up roots and tree stumps" nuzzle - dig out with the snout; "the pig nuzzled the truffle" obtain - come into possession of; "How did you obtain the visa?" locate, turn up - discover the location of; determine the place of; find by searching or examining; "Can you locate your cousins in the Midwest?"; "My search turned up nothing" disinter, exhume - dig up for reburial or for medical investigation; of dead bodies
	3.	excavate - form by hollowing; "Carnegie had a lake excavated for Princeton University's rowing team"; "excavate a cavity" core out, hollow out, hollow - remove the interior of; "hollow out a tree trunk"
	4.	excavate - remove the inner part or the core of; "the mining company wants to excavate the hillside" hollow, dig remove, take away, withdraw, take - remove something concrete, as by lifting, pushing, or taking off, or remove something abstract; "remove a threat"; "remove a wrapper"; "Remove the dirty dishes from the table"; "take the gun from your pocket"; "This machine withdraws heat from the environment" drive - excavate horizontally; "drive a tunnel" trench, ditch - cut a trench in, as for drainage; "ditch the land to drain it"; "trench the fields"

excavate

verb

1. dig up, mine, dig, tunnel, scoop, cut, hollow, trench, burrow, quarry, delve, gouge A team of archaeologists is excavating the site.

2. unearth, expose, uncover, dig out, exhume, lay bare, bring to light, bring to the surface, disinter They have excavated the fossil remains of a prehistoric man.

Collins Thesaurus of the English Language – Complete and Unabridged 2nd Edition. 2002 © HarperCollins Publishers 1995, 2002

excavate

verb

1. To break, turn over, or remove (earth or sand, for example) with or as if with a tool:

delve, dig, grub, scoop, shovel, spade.

2. To make by digging:

dig, scoop, shovel.

Translations

يَحْفُرُ الأرْضَيُنَقِّبُ عن الآثار

udgrave

ausgraben

εκσκάπτω

abattre creuser faire des fouilles

alámoselhordfelásfeltárkiás

grafagrafa upp

scavare scavatrice scavo dissotterrare

ekskavatoriusiškasimaskasėjaskasimaskasinėjimas

izdarīt izrakumusizraktrakt

opdelvenuitgraven

escavar

kazı yapmakkazmak

发掘挖掘

excavate

[ˈekskəveɪt] VT → excavar

Collins Spanish Dictionary - Complete and Unabridged 8th Edition 2005 © William Collins Sons & Co. Ltd. 1971, 1988 © HarperCollins Publishers 1992, 1993, 1996, 1997, 2000, 2003, 2005

excavate

[ˈɛkskəveɪt] vt

(ARCHAEOLOGY) [archeologist] [+ site] → excaver; [+ pot, bone, building] → mettre au jour

(= dig out) [+ hole] → creuser; [+ soil] → creuser

excavate

vt ground → ausschachten; (machine) → ausbaggern; (Archeol) remains → ausgraben; site → Ausgrabungen machen auf (+dat); trench, graves → ausheben

vi (Archeol) → Ausgrabungen machen

Collins German Dictionary – Complete and Unabridged 7th Edition 2005. © William Collins Sons & Co. Ltd. 1980 © HarperCollins Publishers 1991, 1997, 1999, 2004, 2005, 2007

excavate

[ˈɛkskəˌveɪt] vt (ground) → scavare (Archeol) → effettuare gli scavi di

excavate

(ˈekskəveit) verb

1. to dig up (a piece of ground etc) or to dig out (a hole) by doing this.

2. in archaeology, to uncover or open up (a structure etc remaining from earlier times) by digging. The archaeologist excavated an ancient fortress.

ˌexcaˈvation noun

ˈexcavator noun

a machine or person that excavates.

References in classic literature ?

Tegetmeier, I separated two combs, and put between them a long, thick, square strip of wax: the bees instantly began to excavate minute circular pits in it; and as they deepened these little pits, they made them wider and wider until they were converted into shallow basins, appearing to the eye perfectly true or parts of a sphere, and of about the diameter of a cell.

The bees instantly began on both sides to excavate little basins near to each other, in the same way as before; but the ridge of wax was so thin, that the bottoms of the basins, if they had been excavated to the same depth as in the former experiment, would have broken into each other from the opposite sides.

Thus, as I believe, the most wonderful of all known instincts, that of the hive-bee, can be explained by natural selection having taken advantage of numerous, successive, slight modifications of simpler instincts; natural selection having by slow degrees, more and more perfectly, led the bees to sweep equal spheres at a given distance from each other in a double layer, and to build up and excavate the wax along the planes of intersection.

View in context

This great work must be completed within eight months, so that you have 2,543,400 cubic feet of earth to excavate in 255 days; that is to say, in round numbers,

View in context

The truth doubtless was, that the same precautions would have been taken against any travelers, because the English Company who have acquired the right to excavate Ephesus, and have paid a great sum for that right, need to be protected, and deserve to be.

View in context

With its protruding jaws it excavates its winding burrows and with its broad feet it pushes the dirt behind it.

View in context

class="MsoNormalINCITING RESIDENTS They usually excavate soil from the land at night and before we realised, he had excavated about 50 metres," said Mr Ongera.

Kisii residents accuse Chinese firm of stealing soil

There are three or four companies that have licenses to excavate the mountain to supply the stone for use in the area,' he said, adding that the ministry has issued licenses for stone excavation in Phnom Svay 30 since 2000.

Officials deny illegal mountain excavation

| Nestboxes contain a chunk of birch for Willow Tits to excavate. | Inset, a cable-tied birch trunk PICTURES: HENRY COOK AS we head towards the BTO National Nestbox Week (February 14-21), a Colwyn Bay birder is trialling a novel nest to help one of North Wales' rarest birds.

BIRD NOTES With Julian Hughes

'The identity of the victims has yet to be unmasked, but sources revealed that they hailed from Nibo in Awka South Local Government Area of Anambra State, but were at the site to excavate sand into lorries,'' he said.

Tragedy: Sand buries 2 people alive in Enugu Community

not only to excavate and provisionally study the uncovered material, but also to conduct preservation work and to implement new, non-invasive research techniques already partly tested during the 2013 season.

Dozens of items uncovered at Paphos Agora site

It wants the Culture Ministry to excavate the historical site so it can fast-track approval on several projects, including building new homes, places of worship and key infrastructure facilities.