excavation
Language: English
Part of speech: noun
Pronunciation: ipa: /ˌɛkskəˈveɪʃn/
rhymes: -eɪʃən
Forms: form: excavations
Etymology: From Latin excavātiō (“a hollowing out”), from excavō (“I hollow out”), from ex + cavō (“I hollow out”), from cavus (“hollow”), from Proto-Indo-European *ḱewh₁- (“vault, hole”).
Senses: examples: Near-synonyms: hollowing out, hollowing
glosses: The act of excavating, or of making hollow, by cutting, scooping, or digging out a part of a solid mass.
glosses: The act of excavating, or of making hollow, by cutting, scooping, or digging out a part of a solid mass.
Especially, the trade of digging engineered holes for building foundations, roadbed preparations, and similar purposes.
examples: text: Prof. Dainelli made a personal study of the lakes of the Upper Indus lying between its confluence with the Gilgit on the west and the plains of Kashmir on the east. From this district he cites fifty lakes and groups of lakes. Many of these are moraine-dammed, but some of the larger ones, as the Satpor Tso, the Tso Moriri, the Chiun Tso, and the group of lakes associated with the Pángong Tso, he considers to have originated by glacial excavation.
ref: 1924 March, E. J. Garwood, “Himalayan Glaciation”, in The Geographical Journal, volume LXIII, number 3, London: Royal Geographic Society, →ISSN, →OCLC, page 244:
glosses: A cavity formed by cutting, digging, or scooping.
glosses: An uncovered cutting in the earth, in distinction from a covered cutting or tunnel.
examples: text: […] to cart away the excavations from the work, and to recart the same back again so far as required to fill the trench over the sewer […]
ref: 1878, N.Y. Supreme Court (page 4)
glosses: The material dug out in making a channel or cavity.
glosses: Archaeological research that unearths buildings, tombs and objects of historical value.
examples: text: Gregory led the excavations alongside marine archaeologist Andreas Kallmeyer Bloch, who is also a curator at the National Museum.
“It’s been a long process and I’ve come close to giving up along the way, but this is undoubtedly the craziest archaeological excavation I’ve yet been part of,” Bloch said in the news release.
ref: 2025 May 2, Amarachi Orie, “Archaeologists discover true identity of Costa Rica shipwrecks long thought to be pirate ships”, in CNN:
glosses: A site where an archaeological exploration is being carried out.
examples: text: To date, [Taco's 1982 cover of Irving Berlin's 1935] "Cheek To Cheek" and similar auditory excavations have fared poorly.
ref: 1990, Wayne Jancik, The Billboard Book of One-Hit Wonders, →ISBN, page 392:
glosses: Something uncovered by archaeological excavation.
examples: text: Chua looks at the landscape of childhood rather like a mining engineer looks at a pristine landscape—ripe for the excavation of talent.
ref: 2015, Anne Manne, The Life of I : The New Culture of Narcissism:
text: This Andrade, a lawyer, seemed to enjoy bureucratic process as much as Mário de Andrade valorized the enthnographic excavation of creativity.
ref: 2015, John F. Collins, Revolt of the Saints:
text: In the same vein, Emirbayer and Desmond (2012) highlight the vital need for deeper scholarly reflexivity as regards race, advocating excavation of hidden presuppositions at social, disciplinary and scholastic levels.
ref: 2024, Geraldine Healy, Ahu Tatli, Cynthia Forson, Mustafa B. Öztürk, “Introduction—the pervasive nature of inequalities”, in Cynthia Forson, Geraldine Healy, Mustafa B. Öztürk, Ahu Tatli, editor, Research Handbook on Inequalities and Work, page 7:
glosses: The act of discovering and exposing or developing (a quality).
Derived terms: excavational
excavationist
excavation unit
nonexcavation
reexcavation
re-excavation
sub-excavation