Adjacent Words

Excavate definitions

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Webster's 1828 Dictionary

EX'CAVATE, v.t. [L. excavo; ex and cavo, to hollow, cavus, hollow. See Cave.]
To hollow; to cut, scoop, dig or wear out the inner part of any thing and make it hollow; as, to excavate a ball; to excavate the earth; to excavate the trunk of a tree and form a canoe.

WordNet (r) 3.0 (2005)

v
1: recover through digging; "Schliemann excavated Troy"; "excavate gold" [syn: excavate, unearth]
2: find by digging in the ground; "I dug up an old box in the garden" [syn: excavate, dig up, turn up]
3: form by hollowing; "Carnegie had a lake excavated for Princeton University's rowing team"; "excavate a cavity"
4: remove the inner part or the core of; "the mining company wants to excavate the hillside" [syn: excavate, dig, hollow]

Merriam Webster's

verb (-vated; -vating) Etymology: Latin excavatus, past participle of excavare, from ex- + cavare to make hollow — more at cavatina Date: 1599 transitive verb 1. to form a cavity or hole in 2. to form by hollowing out 3. to dig out and remove 4. to expose to view by or as if by digging away a covering <excavate the remains of a temple> intransitive verb to make excavations

Oxford Reference Dictionary

v.tr. 1 a make (a hole or channel) by digging. b dig out material from (the ground). 2 reveal or extract by digging. 3 (also absol.) Archaeol. dig systematically into the ground to explore (a site). Derivatives: excavation n. excavator n. Etymology: L excavare (as EX-(1), cavus hollow)

Webster's 1913 Dictionary

Excavate Ex"ca*vate, v. t. [imp. & p. p. Excavated; p. pr. & vb. n. Excavating.] [L. excavatus, p. p. of excavare to excavate; ex out + cavare to make hollow, cavus hollow. See Cave.] 1. To hollow out; to form cavity or hole in; to make hollow by cutting, scooping, or digging; as, to excavate a ball; to excavate the earth. 2. To form by hollowing; to shape, as a cavity, or anything that is hollow; as, to excavate a canoe, a cellar, a channel. 3. (Engin.) To dig out and remove, as earth. The material excavated was usually sand. --E. L. Corthell. Excavating pump, a kind of dredging apparatus for excavating under water, in which silt and loose material mixed with water are drawn up by a pump. --Knight.

Collin's Cobuild Dictionary

(excavates, excavating, excavated) 1. When archaeologists or other people excavate a piece of land, they remove earth carefully from it and look for things such as pots, bones, or buildings which are buried there, in order to discover information about the past. A new Danish expedition is again excavating the site in annual summer digs. VERB: V n • excavation (excavations) ...the excavation of a bronze-age boat... N-VAR 2. To excavate means to dig a hole in the ground, for example in order to build there. A contractor was hired to drain the reservoir and to excavate soil from one area for replacement with clay. VERB: V n • excavation ...the excavation of canals. N-VAR

Soule's Dictionary of English Synonyms

v. a. Hollow, hollow out, scoop out, dig out, cut out.

Moby Thesaurus

avulse, bore, bring to light, bring up, burrow, clear, countersink, cut out, deepen, delve, depress, deracinate, dig, dig out, dig up, dike, disclose, disentangle, disinter, dive, draw, draw out, dredge, dredge up, drill, drive, eradicate, evolve, evulse, excise, exhume, expose, exsect, extract, extricate, ferret out, fish up, furrow, get out, gouge, gouge out, groove, grub, grub up, hollow out, lay bare, lower, mine, pick out, pluck out, pluck up, pull, pull out, pull up, quarry, rake out, remove, reveal, rip out, root out, root up, sap, scoop, scoop out, scrabble, scrape, scratch, shovel, sink, spade, take out, tear out, trench, trough, tunnel, turn up, uncover, unearth, unravel, uproot, weed out, withdraw, worm out, wrest out