Synonyms of excavating

excavating

verb

present participle of excavate

as in digging

to hollow out or form (something) by removing earth

workmen are excavating a long tunnel that will eventually replace the aboveground expressway

Synonyms & Similar Words

• digging
• shoveling
• dredging
• grubbing
• burrowing
• mining
• scooping
• delving
• clawing
• quarrying
• spading
• digging in

Antonyms & Near Antonyms

• filling (in)
• smoothing (out or over)

Example Sentences

Recent Examples of excavating

When not excavating and eating Rosenthal’s bread and cheese, the men rehearse for a musical comedy performance featuring a chorus line of men in drag. — Thomas Doherty, HollywoodReporter, 18 July 2026

Rather than excavating the find himself, Wiśniewski reported it to heritage officials, who recovered the artifact using professional archaeological methods. — Ashley Vega, PEOPLE, 16 July 2026

Archaeologists excavating Xultun, a large Mayan site in northeast Guatemala, have identified the name of an 8th-century Mayan astronomer-mathematician who wrote a calendrical formula on an interior wall of a small masonry building. — Leigh Anne Miller, ARTnews.com, 14 July 2026

Sotheby's said Heitkamp's team spent three field seasons excavating the fossil before years of lab work cleaning, documenting and assembling the skeleton. — Stepheny Price, FOXNews.com, 14 July 2026

Hurst hopes more context can be gleaned by further studies of the many other plaster scraps—which bear different handwriting from at least one other scribe—and by excavating more of the lost city. — Joseph Howlett, Scientific American, 13 July 2026

The investment of time and money put into excavating and polishing a skeleton such as Gus would not be possible, according to Hatton, without the prospect of a high-value sale. — Jacopo Prisco, CNN Money, 13 July 2026

Investigators later conducted a second search warrant operation on June 23 that included excavating portions of the property for evidence of dogs buried in mass graves. — Thao Nguyen, USA Today, 30 June 2026

Systematic study did not come until the 1930s, when 16-year-old John Goggin began formally surveying and excavating sites from Snapper Creek to Surfside, in the Keys and the Glades as part of a program at Yale. — Andres Viglucci, Miami Herald, 30 June 2026