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.
  • Most cities cannot excavate their way to safety fast enough.
    — Eric Klinenberg, New Yorker, 6 Apr. 2026
  • Don't let the wood-excavating pests make a mess of your home.
    — Nafeesah Allen, Better Homes & Gardens, 19 May 2026
  • At the moment, though, there are no plans to excavate or test the area.
    — Brigit Katz, Smithsonian, 15 Mar. 2018
  • For them, the amount of hard work needed to excavate the shaft was not worth it.
    — CNN, 24 Feb. 2022
  • So far researchers have been able to excavate much of the roundel itself.
    — Joshua Hawkins, BGR, 28 Sep. 2022
  • There’s a lot more to excavate than the couple want to believe.
    — Inkoo Kang, The New Yorker, 11 Nov. 2023
  • Workers have had to excavate the site to repair the pipe.
    — Rick Hurd, Mercury News, 9 Jan. 2026
  • This year, the drought enabled the researchers to excavate far more of the city.
    — Gabe Allen, Discover Magazine, 28 June 2022
  • So why hasn’t the site been excavated in more detail?
    — Christopher McFadden, Interesting Engineering, 25 Dec. 2025
  • The other bombs ended up in an area of the site that has not yet been excavated.
    — Fox News, 9 July 2019
  • The complaint did not say if the area was excavated or what was wrapped in the plastic.
    — Charna Flam, People.com, 13 Mar. 2025
  • That is to excavate ash out of unlined pits and move it into dry, lined storage.
    — Sarah Bowman, The Indianapolis Star, 11 Feb. 2021
  • The team excavated around the broken leg, leaving it on a kind of pedestal of earth.
    — Michael E. Ruane, ajc, 19 June 2018
  • Some will excavate and seek out rotten wood and the nest won’t be visible.
    — Howard Koplowitz | [email protected], al.com, 1 July 2019
  • Priests in the state have also been on the front lines of efforts to locate and excavate mass graves.
    — Kate Linthicum, latimes.com, 6 Feb. 2018
  • To sit in the grasses, to talk to the neighbors, to excavate, the woman tells the six.
    — Literary Hub, 3 Apr. 2026
  • 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
  • Among them, a hominin femur that was excavated from the cave bears teeth marks.
    — Stephanie Pappas, Scientific American, 7 Jan. 2026
  • City is made from clay, sand, and rock, all excavated from the innards of the site and reshaped.
    — Lara Johnson-Wheeler, Vogue, 3 July 2026
  • Close by, researchers found the slave lodgings and began to excavate.
    — Rebecca Ann Hughes, Forbes, 8 Nov. 2021
  • Rocky will start excavating in the summer.
    — Dennis Valera, CBS News, 27 Apr. 2026
  • The duo are planning to return to the hillside next summer to excavate more.
    — Timothy Bella, Washington Post, 31 Aug. 2023
  • Each requires at least three bites to enjoy — and to ensure the tail meat is excavated.
    — Tanya Sichynsky, New York Times, 25 Feb. 2025
  • Her team has excavated an area the size of tennis court so far, and she has been stunned by how tightly packed the bones are.
    — Chloe Mayer, MSNBC Newsweek, 19 May 2025
  • The Rams rely on their scouts to excavate late-round picks and their staff to develop them.
    — New York Times, 13 Feb. 2022
  • The thrill of the rush is what got kids on the run as their parents tried to direct them to areas not yet excavated.
    — Gloria Casas, Chicago Tribune, 18 Apr. 2025

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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