excavation
/ˌɛkskəˈveɪʃn/
Word Rarity
Rare
Frequency: Zipf frequency 3.46 in modern English
22
Scrabble Score
10
Letters
4
Syllables
9
Unique Chars
Meaning
noun
The act of excavating, or of making hollow, by cutting, scooping, or digging out a part of a solid mass.
Uncountable
noun
The act of excavating, or of making hollow, by cutting, scooping, or digging out a part of a solid mass.
Countable; Uncountable
noun
Archaeological research that unearths buildings, tombs and objects of historical value.
Uncountable
Example Sentences
- "Near-synonyms: hollowing out, hollowing"
- "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."
- "[…] 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 […]"
- "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."
- "To date, [Taco's 1982 cover of Irving Berlin's 1935] "Cheek To Cheek" and similar auditory excavations have fared poorly."
- "Chua looks at the landscape of childhood rather like a mining engineer looks at a pristine landscape—ripe for the excavation of talent."
Etymology
From Latin excavātiō (“a hollowing out”), from excavō (“to hollow out”), from ex + cavō (“to hollow out”), from cavus (“hollow”), from Proto-Indo-European *ḱewh₁- (“vault, hole”). Equivalent to excavate + -ion.
Origin
- Source language: Latin
Word Breakdown
- Root: excavātiō, *ḱewh₁-