Meaning
- Excavate means to dig out or remove earth, soil, or rock, often to uncover something hidden or to make space for construction.
- It can also mean to unearth objects of historical or archaeological interest.
Grammar and Usage
- Part of speech: Verb
- Verb type: Transitive (takes a direct object)
- Pattern: excavate + noun
Examples of patterns:
- excavate a site
- excavate the soil
- excavate ancient ruins
Common Phrases
- excavate a site – to dig a location for construction or archaeology
- excavate remains – to dig up bones or artifacts
- excavate a tunnel – to dig and form a tunnel
- excavate foundations – to dig space for building foundations
Collocations
- Verb + excavate: carefully excavate, fully excavate, begin to excavate
- Noun + excavate: archaeologists excavate, workers excavate, engineers excavate
- Object + excavate: excavate soil, excavate land, excavate ruins
Examples
- Archaeologists plan to excavate the ancient tomb next month.
- The workers had to excavate the area before laying the foundation.
- Fossils were excavated from deep layers of rock.
- The company will excavate a large trench for the new pipeline.
- They used heavy machinery to excavate the construction site.
- Human remains were excavated during the road expansion project.
- Students were allowed to help excavate artifacts at the historical site.
- The miners slowly excavated a tunnel through the mountain.
Synonyms or Related
- dig out
- unearth
- uncover
- hollow out
- quarry
Antonym
- bury
- cover
- conceal