Excavate

Definitions: Excavate

Excavate

Verb

1. Lay bare through digging; "Schliemann excavated Troy".

2. Find by digging in the ground; "I dug up an old box in the garden".

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 hillsite".

Date "excavate" was first used in popular English literature: sometime before 1865. (references)

Note: Excavate \Ex"ca*vate\, transitive verb. [imperative past participle Excavated; present participle verb or noun Excavating.]. (Websters 1913)

Domain	Definitions
Science	Of a perithecial axis, deeply concave. (references)
Source: compiled by the editor from various references; see credits.

Synonyms: Excavate

Synonyms: dig (v), dig up (v), hollow (v), turn up (v), unearth (v). (additional references)

Context	Synonyms within Context (source: adapted from Roget's Thesaurus).
Concavity	Render concave; Adjective: depress, hollow; scoop, scoop out; gouge, gouge out, dig, delve, excavate, dent, dint, mine, sap, undermine, burrow, tunnel, stave in.
Source: adapted from Roget's Thesaurus.

Domain	Title
Books	Prehistoric Man - The Explorer's Kit: Visit a Prehistoric World and Excavate Early Man (Discovery Kits) (reference) (more book examples)
Source: compiled by the editor from various references; see credits.

Thumbnail	Description & Credit
	Using dynamite to excavate a bench mark hole Note dirt flying out of hole Level party of H. J. Oliver.Credit: Coast & Geodetic Survey Historical Image Collection.
Source: compiled by the editor from various references; see credits.

Play	Caption
	Dirt; construction; worker; digging; dig; excavation; excavating; excavate; hole; earth; .
Source: compiled by the editor from various references; see credits.

Subject	Topic	Quote
Business		Due to geographical proximity, the Dutch and Belgians can excavate contaminated soils, transport them, and treat them in their own countries. (references)
Lexicography	Devil's Dictionary	BODY-:SNATCHER:, n. A robber of grave-worms. One who supplies the young physicians with that with which the old physicians have supplied the undertaker. The hyena. "One night," a doctor said, "last fall, I and my comrades, four in all, When visiting a graveyard stood Within the shadow of a wall. "While waiting for the moon to sink We saw a wild hyena slink About a new-made grave, and then Begin to excavate its brink! "Shocked by the horrid act, we made A sally from our ambuscade, And, falling on the unholy beast, Dispatched him with a pick and spade." Bettel K. Jhones
Source: compiled by the editor from ICON Group International, Inc.; see credits.

"Excavate" is generally used as a lexical verb (infinitive) -- approximately 70.49% of the time. "Excavate" is used about 61 times out of a sample of 100 million words spoken or written in English. Its rank is based on over 700,000 words used in the English language. Some parts-of-speech are not covered due to the samples used by the British National Corpus. (note: percents less than one-hundredth of one percent have been omitted)

Parts of Speech	Percent	Usage per 100 Million Words	Rank in English
Lexical Verb (infinitive)	70.49%	43	52,181
Lexical Verb (base form)	29.51%	18	82,615
Total	100.00%	61	N/A

The following statistics estimate the number of searches per day across the major English-language search engines as identified by various trade publications. Hyperlinks lead to commercial use of the expression at Amazon.com.

Language		Translations for "excavate"; alternative meanings/domain in parentheses.
Albanian		nxjerr nga dheu, gërmoj (break ground, cave, dig, dig out, dig up, grub, hollow out, Mold, mole, mould, pick, poke about, rout), bëj gërmime, çgropos. (various references)

Arabic		‏كشف عن الآثار (excavation), ‏حفر (bore, burrow, burrowing, dig, digging, digging in, ditch, drill, drilling, etch, excavation, fetch, fossilize, gnaw, grave, hew, inscribe, make a hole in, pick up, pit, plough, rut, scrape, sink), ‏إستخرج (educe, elicit, evolve, extract, lever, mine, quarry, read out, shake), ‏شق (chap, check, chink, cleavage, cleave, cleft, crack, cranny, crash, crevasse, crevice, cut, fissure, flaw, fracture, hew, hole, incise, incision, jag, loophole, lump, nick, open, overture, part, rift, rip, rive, slash, slit, slot, snag, snip, spiracle, splinter, split, spring, tear, twist). (various references)

Bulgarian		разкопавам (break fresh ground, break ground, dig up, grub, pickax), копая (break ground, delve, dig, dredge, fossick, grub, hoe, mine, navvy, pickax, scoop, scoop out, shovel), правя разкопки, изривам (shovel out, turn up, unearth), изкопавам (dig, disinter, grub, mine, quarry, sink, turn up, unearth), дълбая (carve, cave, chamber, chip, corrode, delve, hollow, wear away). (various references)

Chinese		採掘 , 挖掘 (Excavated, Excavating, Excavation, Quarried, Quarrying). (various references)

Czech		vykopat (dig out, dig up, lift), vyhloubit (dig out, scoop), vybagrovat. (various references)

Danish		udgrave toert (to excavate in the dry), at udgrave (to excavate), at bortgrave (to excavate), afgrave toert (to excavate in the dry). (various references)

Dutch		rooien (aim, assarting, bush and bog work, clearing, clearing of the ground, dig, dig up, grub, grubbing, grubbing vines, intend, land clearing, land reclamation, lift, pioneering, ploughing virgin soil, pull up), opgraven (dig, dig up, grub, lift, pull up), opduikelen (dig up, grub), delven (dig up, grub). (various references)

Esperanto		elfosi (dig up, grub). (various references)

Farsi		کاویدن (Drag, Rummage), حفاری کردن (Unearth), حفرکردن (Cave, Grave, Gull), ازخاک دراوردن (Disinter, Exhume). (various references)

Finnish		kaivaa (burrow, cut, delve, dig, dig out, disinter, drive, exhume, grub, pick, spade, to dig, to excavate, to spade). (various references)

French		excaver. (various references)

German		ausschachten (dig up, sink, to excavate), ausgraben (bring up, dig, dig out, dig up, lift, pull up, root up, to excavate, unearth). (various references)

Greek		εκσκάπτω (grub, quarry, to excavate), ανασκάπτω (to dig, to dredge, to excavate, to spade). (various references)

Hebrew		לחשוף עתיקות, לחפור (break ground, dig, grub, unearth). (various references)

Hungarian		elhord (outwear, outwore, outworn, to carry away, to erode, to outwear, to wear off), kiás (dig out, dig up, hollow, to delve out, to delve up, to disinter, to dredge, to dredge up, to excavate, to grub, to grub up, to root out, to root up, to stub, to unearth). (various references)

Indonesian		menggali (dig, disinter, exhume, see: gali), gerai (dig). (various references)

Italian		scavare (cave, delve, dig, ditch, hollow, mine, pick, plough, plow, scoop out, scour, to dig away, to grub). (various references)

Japanese Kanji		掘る (to dig, to excavate). (various references)

Japanese Katakana		くりぬく (to bore, to drill, to excavate, to gouge out), くる (hunchback, rickets, to approach, to arrive, to be caused by, to be due, to become, to bore, to call on, to come, to come from, to come on, to come to hand, to derive from, to excavate, to get, to gouge, to grow, to hollow out, to reel, to scoop out, to set in, to wind), ほりぬく (to dig through, to drill into, to excavate), ほる (to carve, to chisel, to dig, to engrave, to excavate, to sculpture), えぐる (to bore, to excavate, to gouge, to hollow out, to scoop out). (various references)

Korean		굴착하십시�". (various references)

Manx		toghailt (excavation), toaghailtey. (various references)

Norwegian		grave ut. (various references)

Pig Latin		excavateay

Portuguese		escavar (cave, chip, delve, dig, dig in, erode, examine, explore, gouge, grub, gully, gutter, hollow, investigate, mole, pit, research, scoop, to dig away, to excavate, wash out), cavar (burrow, cave, delve, dig, dish, ditch, grub, hoeing, hole, hollow, mole, pit, scoop, spade), agravamento (aggravation, escalation, recrudescence). (various references)

Romanian		excava (dig up, scoop), sãpa (burrow, cave, cut, delve, dig, drive, engraft, engrave, grave, hoe, hole, hollow, inscribe, lift, mine, pick, sink, spud, trench, undermine), dezgropa (dig up, disentomb, disinter, exhume, resurrect, unearth), adânci (aggravate, Bury, corrode, deepen, delve, fathom, further, gouge, hole, sound, submerge, subside). (various references)

Russian		рыть (delve, dig, gopher), копать (delve, dig, lift, mole), вырывать (avulse, belch, pick out, pull out, rip out, tear out, wrest), выкапывать (dig from, dig out, disinter, exhume, grub, rout). (various references)

Serbo-Croatian		otkopati (dig up, earth up), iskopati (dig out, dig up, drag up, dredge, grub, plant out, unearth). (various references)

Spanish		excavar (burrow, dig, dig out, dig up, grub, hollow, sink, to dig away, tunnel, unearth). (various references)

Swedish		gräva upp (dig up, disentomb, disinter, exhume, grub, unearth). (various references)

Thai		ขุ�"ค้น (อย่างระมั�"ระวังและเป็นกระบวนการ) เพื่อหาวัตถุโบรา�", ขุ�"�"ิน. (various references)

Turkish		oymak (bore, boy-scout troop, carve, cave, cave in, chase, chisel, clan, cut, engrave, etch, gouge, gouge out, grave, hollow, hollow out, incise, recess, scoop out, sculp, sculpt, sculpture, trace over, tribe), kazmak (cave, cave in, dig, disinter, grub, hole, hollow, hollow out, mine, pick, pick up, sink, spud, trench), kazı yapmak. (various references)

Ukranian		копати (bill, dig, gopher, mole, scoop, shovel), викопувати (delve, dig, dig out, dig up, grub up, rout out). (various references)
Source: compiled by the editor from various translation references.

Language	Period	Translations
Latin	500 BCE-Modern	defossus, effoderis, effodiam, effodiant, effodit, effodiunt. (various references)
Source: compiled by the editor from various references.

Derivations
	Words beginning with "excavate": excavated, excavates. (additional references)
Misspellings
	"Excavate" is suggested in spellcheckers for the following: escavate, excabate, excuvate, Xavante. (additional references)
Source: compiled by the editor, based on several corpora (additional references).

# of Phoneme Matches	Pronunciation	Word(s) rhyming with "excavate" (pronounced e"kskuvā't)
4	-u v ā' t	activate, aggravate, cultivate, elevate, innovate, motivate, reactivate, renovate, salivate.
3	-v ā' t	captivate, deactivate, inactivate.
Source: compiled by the editor (additional references); see credits.

Scrabble® Enable2K-Verified Anagrams
	Words within the letters "a-a-c-e-e-t-v-x"
	-2 letters: caveat, exacta, vacate.
	-3 letters: aceta, exact.
	-4 letters: acta, cate, cave, cete, eave, exec, tace, taxa, vext.
	-5 letters: ace, act, ate, ava, ave, axe, cat, cee, eat, eta, eve, tae, tav, tax, tea, tee, vac, vat, vee, vet, vex.
	Words containing the letters "a-a-c-e-e-t-v-x"
	+1 letter: excavated, excavates.
	+4 letters: extravagance.
	+5 letters: extravagances.
Source: compiled by the editor from various references; see credits. SCRABBLE® is a registered trademark. All intellectual property rights in and to the game are owned in the U.S.A and Canada by Hasbro Inc., and throughout the rest of the world by J.W. Spear & Sons Limited of Maidenhead, Berkshire, England, a subsidiary of Mattel Inc. Mattel and Spear are not affiliated with Hasbro.