How to Use excavate in a Sentence

excavate

verb
  • It is the first site to be excavated in this area.
  • They began excavating the backyard for their new pool.
  • The excess dirt was carefully excavated.
  • They excavated an ancient city.
  • Female carpenter bees may excavate new tunnels for laying egg, or enlarge and reuse old ones.
    Tim Johnson, chicagotribune.com, 30 May 2021
  • The study authors had a strong sense that the area was due for further examination and gathered a team of experts to excavate it.
    Julia Binswanger, Smithsonian Magazine, 3 Oct. 2024
  • The syndicate had the giant excavated and moved to Syracuse for public display.
    Emilie Le Beau Lucchesi, Discover Magazine, 7 Oct. 2024
  • From outside a neighboring building on Monday, more than two dozen family members watched teams of searchers excavate the building site.
    BostonGlobe.com, 29 June 2021
  • The 40-year certification process, however, did not require a crew to excavate around the foundation or look at the pilings.
    Erin Mansfield, USA TODAY, 26 June 2021
  • When the beam settles too far—typically just over 2 degrees, McLaughlin says—crews excavate the parking lot and jack the hinge slab back up to the proper slope.
    Dylan Taylor-Lehman, Popular Mechanics, 29 July 2021
  • As the world slowly reopens, prepare to excavate your beloved foundation, concealer, mascara, lipstick, and eyeshadow.
    Bella Cacciatore, Glamour, 18 May 2021
  • For them, the amount of hard work needed to excavate the shaft was not worth it.
    CNN, 24 Feb. 2022
  • This year, the drought enabled the researchers to excavate far more of the city.
    Gabe Allen, Discover Magazine, 28 June 2022
  • There’s a lot more to excavate than the couple want to believe.
    Inkoo Kang, The New Yorker, 11 Nov. 2023
  • The faulty premise that my job is just excavating a street.
    Jon Blistein, Rolling Stone, 19 Oct. 2023
  • So far researchers have been able to excavate much of the roundel itself.
    Joshua Hawkins, BGR, 28 Sep. 2022
  • At the time, a group of divers discovered the wreck and applied for a French permit to excavate the site.
    Geneva Sands, CNN, 2 Mar. 2022
  • Carter’s dream was always to excavate a single site: the Valley of the Kings.
    Jo Marchant, Smithsonian Magazine, 3 Nov. 2022
  • Daniel Fisher, co-leader of the study, helped excavate the mastodon 24 years ago.
    Ashley Strickland, CNN, 13 June 2022
  • Back in 1984, work on the home began with excavating a large hole in an open field.
    David Caraccio, Sacramento Bee, 28 May 2024
  • The duo are planning to return to the hillside next summer to excavate more.
    Timothy Bella, Washington Post, 31 Aug. 2023
  • The following summer, Lyson’s team, with help from the children, went to the site to excavate the fossil.
    Will Sullivan, Smithsonian Magazine, 5 June 2024
  • The Rams rely on their scouts to excavate late-round picks and their staff to develop them.
    New York Times, 13 Feb. 2022
  • Dirt filled with traces of lead paint and asbestos that would need to be excavated for a new basement.
    Mike Hendricks, Kansas City Star, 25 June 2024
  • With so much to excavate, the only thing more impressive than the deepness is the lightness.
    Chris Richards, Washington Post, 29 July 2022
  • Researchers spent one and a half years excavating the area.
    Allison Futterman, Discover Magazine, 16 June 2023
  • Close by, researchers found the slave lodgings and began to excavate.
    Rebecca Ann Hughes, Forbes, 8 Nov. 2021
  • But in 2010, instead of planting, the family watched four men with shovels excavate and haul away the soil.
    New York Times, 3 Dec. 2021
  • Drought in the region briefly caused part of the settlement to resurface in 2018, allowing Puljiz and her team to excavate sections of the palace.
    Denise Chow, NBC News, 2 June 2022
  • The owls nest in burrows excavated by California ground squirrels, occasionally popping up to stare with striking yellow eyes.
    Lisa M. Krieger, The Mercury News, 19 Oct. 2024

Some of these examples are programmatically compiled from various online sources to illustrate current usage of the word 'excavate.' Any opinions expressed in the examples do not represent those of Merriam-Webster or its editors. Send us feedback about these examples.

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