excavation

plural excavations

1. uncountableThe act of excavating, or of making hollow, by cutting, scooping, or digging out a part of a solid mass.

   Near-synonyms: hollowing out, hollowing

   Synonyms: hollowing out, hollowing

   1. countableuncountableEspecially, the trade of digging engineered holes for building foundations, roadbed preparations, and similar purposes.

      Synonyms: hollowing out, hollowing

2. countableA cavity formed by cutting, digging, or scooping.

   1 more example

   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.

   1924 March, E. J. Garwood, “Himalayan Glaciation”, in The Geographical Journal, volume LXIII, number 3, London: Royal Geographic Society, →ISSN, →OCLC, page 244

3. countableAn uncovered cutting in the earth, in distinction from a covered cutting or tunnel.
4. countableThe material dug out in making a channel or cavity.

   […] 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 […]

   1878, N.Y. Supreme Court (page 4)

5. uncountableArchaeological research that unearths buildings, tombs and objects of historical value.
6. countableA site where an archaeological exploration is being carried out.

   1 more example

   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.

   2025 May 2, Amarachi Orie, “Archaeologists discover true identity of Costa Rica shipwrecks long thought to be pirate ships”, in CNN, archived from the original on 02 Aug 2025

7. countableSomething uncovered by archaeological excavation.

   To date, [Taco's 1982 cover of Irving Berlin's 1935] "Cheek To Cheek" and similar auditory excavations have fared poorly.

   1990, Wayne Jancik, The Billboard Book of One-Hit Wonders, →ISBN, page 392

8. countablefigurativelyuncountableThe act of discovering and exposing or developing (a quality).

   Chua looks at the landscape of childhood rather like a mining engineer looks at a pristine landscape—ripe for the excavation of talent.

   2015, Anne Manne, The Life of I : The New Culture of Narcissism

   2 more examples

   This Andrade, a lawyer, seemed to enjoy bureucratic process as much as Mário de Andrade valorized the enthnographic excavation of creativity.

   2015, John F. Collins, Revolt of the Saints

   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.

   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