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w out; to form cavity or hole in; to make hollow by cutting, scooping, or digging; as, to excavate a ball; to excavate the earth.

, a small American and European swallow (Clivicola riparia) that nests in a hole which it excavates in a bank.

To excavate a hole to lodge in, as in the earth; to lodge in a hole excavated in the earth, as conies or rabbits.

A boat used by rude nations, formed of trunk of a tree, excavated, by cutting of burning, into a suitable shape. It is propelled by a paddle or paddles, or sometimes by sail, and has no rudder. Others devised the boat of one tree, called the canoe. Raleigh.

An underground gallery excavated to intercept and destroy the mining of an enemy.

To hollow out, as a well; to form, as a ditch, by removing earth; to excavate; as, to dig a ditch or a well.

One who, or that which, excavates or hollows out; a machine, as a dredging machine, or a tool, for excavating.

To excavate. [Obs.] Cockeram.

A group of hymenopterous insects including the sand wasps. They excavate cells in earth, where they deposit their eggs, with the bodies of other insects for the food of the young when hatched. [Written also Fossoria.]

g; a connecting passageway, as between one room and another; also, a long hole or passage excavated by a boring or burrowing animal.

ing an empty space or cavity, natural or artificial, within a solid substance; not solid; excavated in the interior; as, a hollow tree; a hollow sphere. Hollow with boards shalt thou make it. Ex. xxvii. 8..

Any of numerous insects which, in the larval state, excavate galleries in the parenchyma of leaves. They are mostly minute moths and dipterous flies.

ochlore. -- Mole cricket (Zoöl.), an orthopterous insect of the genus Gryllotalpa, which excavates subterranean galleries, and throws up mounds of earth resembling those of the mole. It is said to do damage by injuring the roots of plants. The common European species (Gryllotalpa vulgaris), and the American (G. boreal…

ur-tubed rushlike leaves, rising from a corm, and containing spores in their enlarged and excavated bases. There are about seventeen American species, usually growing in the mud under still, shallow water. So called from the shape of the shape of the leaves.

Earth or materials made into a bank after having been excavated.

A shaft excavated from below upward.

tural evaporation of sea water for the production of salt, employing large shallow basins excavated near the seashore. -- Salt gauge, an instrument used to test the strength of brine; a salimeter. -- Salt horse, salted beef. [Slang] -- Salt junk, hard salt beef for use at sea. [Slang] -- Salt lick. See Lick, n. -- S…

To make hollow, as a scoop or dish; to excavate; to dig out; to form by digging or excavation. Those carbuncles the Indians will scoop, so as to hold above a pint. Arbuthnot.

To dig or excavate with the claws; as, some animals scratch holes, in which they burrow. To scratch a ticket, to cancel one or more names of candidates on a party ballot; to refuse to vote the party ticket in its entirety. [U.S.]

To excavate in the form of stopes.