Excavation

How to spell excavation

10 letters · 4 syllables

How to pronounce excavation

Say the part in capitals loudest.

What does excavation mean?

1. nounThe act of digging out earth, rock, or other material, or the hole or site that results.

Excavation in a sentence

• The excavation of the basement took three weeks and a large digger.

• Archaeologists resumed the excavation of the Roman villa each summer.

Where does excavation come from?

Language of origin: Latin

This word descends from the Latin verb excavare, meaning 'to hollow out', which was formed from the prefix ex- 'out' and cavare 'to make hollow'. That verb in turn rests on the adjective cavus, meaning 'hollow' or 'empty', the very same root that gives English 'cave' and 'cavity'. The Latin noun excavatio described the act of digging something out, and English picked up the term in the early 1600s, partly through French. From the start it carried both senses we still use today: the action of digging and the hole or site that results. Remembering that the middle of the word literally means 'hollow' (cav) helps explain why the single v and the -ava- run feel slippery to write.

How the word is built

• ex- (out)
• cav (hollow, from Latin cavus)
• -ation (noun of action)