5 uses
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Definition
to dig out
in various senses, including:
- remove or lay bare — as when removing top soil to lay a foundation
- find or uncover — as at an archaeological site
- remove a part — as a tooth from the gum that surrounds it
- And after that I abandoned altogether the idea of escaping by excavation.2.3 — Book 2 Chapter 3 — The Days of Imprisonment (90% in)
- The growing crowd, he said, was becoming a serious impediment to their excavations, especially the boys.1.3 — Book 1 Chapter 3 — The Horsell Common (86% in)
- At first I scarcely noticed the pit and the cylinder, although it has been convenient to describe them first, on account of the extraordinary glittering mechanism I saw busy in the excavation, and on account of the strange creatures that were crawling slowly and painfully across the heaped mould near it.2.2 — Book 2 Chapter 2 — What We Saw from the Ruined House (15% in)
- When I looked again, the busy handling-machine had already put together several of the pieces of apparatus it had taken out of the cylinder into a shape having an unmistakable likeness to its own; and down on the left a busy little digging mechanism had come into view, emitting jets of green vapour and working its way round the pit, excavating and embanking in a methodical and discriminating manner.2.2 — Book 2 Chapter 2 — What We Saw from the Ruined House (98% in)
- The Martians had taken away the excavating-machine, and, save for a fighting-machine that stood in the remoter bank of the pit and a handling-machine that was buried out of my sight in a corner of the pit immediately beneath my peephole, the place was deserted by them.2.3 — Book 2 Chapter 3 — The Days of Imprisonment (93% in)
There are no more uses of "excavate" in The War of the Worlds.
Typical Usage
(best examples)