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# excavate

verb (excavate, excavates, excavated, excavating)

«excavate» in the English dictionary: everyday — its meanings, how the lessons use it, and examples, each with its tree on Mova.

## Everyday

1. To excavate means to dig carefully in the ground to find old things such as buildings, bones or tools. [tree →](https://mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/dictionaries/school/E/excavate/#m1)
2. To excavate means to dig out a hole, tunnel or area, for example for building. [tree →](https://mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/dictionaries/school/E/excavate/#m2)

### In the lessons

In history and archaeology lessons, archaeologists excavate sites like Roman towns, Viking villages or dinosaur fossils, using trowels and brushes and recording every find. In building, diggers excavate foundations. The noun excavation names the dig or the hole.

### Examples

- Archaeologists excavated a Roman villa under the car park. [tree →](https://mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/dictionaries/school/E/excavate/#x1)
- They are excavating the dinosaur bones slowly with brushes. [tree →](https://mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/dictionaries/school/E/excavate/#x2)
- Workers excavated the ground for the new swimming pool. [tree →](https://mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/dictionaries/school/E/excavate/#x3)
- The site was excavated last summer. [tree →](https://mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/dictionaries/school/E/excavate/#x4)
- Our class pretended to excavate a sandpit for buried treasure. [tree →](https://mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/dictionaries/school/E/excavate/#x5)
- Badgers excavate long tunnels. [tree →](https://mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/dictionaries/school/E/excavate/#x6)

### Note

Regular verb: excavated, excavating. Noun: excavation; a person: excavator (also the name of a digging machine). A formal word for dig.

## On Mova

- [Trees and pragmatics of «excavate» in the school dictionary](https://mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/dictionaries/school/E/excavate/): every meaning and example parsed by Mova, with its dependency tree and frames.
- [«excavate» in the school dictionary](https://mova.elamur.ai/free/en/dictionaries/school/w/excavate.html) on Mova free.