Word.ws English Dictionary

excavate

Syllables: ex·ca·va·te/ˈɛk.skə.veɪt/

excavate verb: to make a hole in (something); to hollow.

Verb

excavate (third-person singular simple present excavates, present participle excavating, simple past and past participle excavated)

  1. (transitive) To make a hole in (something); to hollow.
  2. (transitive) To remove part of (something) by scooping or digging it out.
  3. (transitive) To uncover (something) by digging.

Adjective

excavate (not comparable)

  1. (rare) Made hollow.
  2. (obsolete) excavated, hollowed out

Noun

excavate (plural excavates)

  1. Any member of a major grouping of unicellular eukaryotes, of the clade Excavata.

excavate meaning in Tamil, Urdu, Bengali and Malayalam

excavate in Tamil

to excavate, as a pit; to hoe up, hollow out, dig out, as a hole in a wall
கிண்டு kiṇṭu
to excavate
கிளை kiḷai

excavate in Urdu

کھودنا

excavate in Bengali

খনন করা, খুঁড়ে বের করা

excavate in Malayalam

കുഴിക്കുക, ഖനനം ചെയ്യുക, തോണ്ടിയെടുക്കുക, ഉത്ഖനനം, ഉത്ഖനനം ചെയ്യപ്പെട്ട സ്ഥലം
More languagesFewer languages
excavate in Kannada
ಅಗೆದು ಹೊರತೆಗೆ, ಪ್ರಕಟಪಡಿಸು, ಶೋಧಿಸು, ಅಗೆದು ತೆಗೆ
excavate in Sinhala
කණිනවා kaṇinawā
excavate in Tagalog
balon, hukay
excavate in Malay
huke
excavate in Vietnamese
khai quật

Examples of excavate in a sentence

  • When excavated soil is carelessly mounded around the base of a tree, the tree gradually suffocates.
  • The tree was excavated from Tomb 8 at Jiyuan, Sijiangou in Henan Province.
  • A fifth negative test pit was excavated near the largest creek at Middle Point.

All 33 example sentences with excavate

Forms of excavate

Verb
third-person singular presentexcavates
present participleexcavating
past participleexcavated
pastexcavated
Noun
pluralexcavates

Past tense of excavate: excavated

Origin of excavate

First attested in 1599, from Latin excavātus (“hollowed out”), perfect passive participle of excavō (“to hollow out”) (see -ate (verb-forming suffix) and -ate (adjective-forming suffix)), from ex (“out”) + cavō (“to hollow out, pierce”), from cavus (“cave, hole”) + -ō (verb-forming suffix). Participial usage up until Early Modern English.

From a substantivization of Latin excavātus through the associated taxon's name (Excavata), see -ate (noun-forming suffix) and Etymology 1 for more.

Words formed from excavate

Questions about excavate

What does excavate mean?
Excavate means to make a hole in (something); to hollow.
What is excavate in Tamil?
Excavate in Tamil is கிண்டு (kiṇṭu), கிளை (kiḷai). See Excavate meaning in Tamil.
What part of speech is excavate?
Excavate can be a verb, an adjective or a noun.
How do you pronounce excavate?
Excavate is pronounced /ˈɛk.skə.veɪt/.
What is the past tense of excavate?
The past tense of excavate is excavated.

Words near excavate in the dictionary

  1. excarpment
  2. excathedral
  3. excaudate
  4. excavatability
  5. excavatable
  6. excavate
  7. excavated
  8. excavates
  9. excavating
  10. excavating machine
  11. excavating machines

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: excavate (page history and authors); கிண்டு (Tamil) (page history and authors); excavate (Urdu Wiktionary) (page history and authors); Excavate (Bengali Wiktionary) (page history and authors); excavate (Malayalam Wiktionary) (page history and authors); excavate (Kannada Wiktionary) (page history and authors); කණිනවා (Sinhala) (page history and authors). Text available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 license. Word.ws reformatted the entry and added links. Wiktionary data of 2026-09-02.

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Pronunciation audio from Wikimedia Commons, each file under its own free license: LL-Q1860 (eng)-Vealhurl-excavate.wav.

Cite this entry: “excavate.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/excavate. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.