excavation

noun

1. (uncountable)The act of excavating, or of making hollow, by cutting, scooping, or digging out a part of a solid mass.

   “Near-synonyms: hollowing out, hollowing”

2. (countable, uncountable)The act of excavating, or of making hollow, by cutting, scooping, or digging out a part of a solid mass.
3. (countable)A cavity formed by cutting, digging, or scooping.

   “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.”

4. (countable)An uncovered cutting in the earth, in distinction from a covered cutting or tunnel.
5. (countable)The 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 […]”

6. (uncountable)Archaeological research that unearths buildings, tombs and objects of historical value.
7. (countable)A site where an archaeological exploration is being carried out.

   “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.”

8. (countable)Something 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.”

9. (countable, figuratively, uncountable)The 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.”

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

   “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.”