excavator
Americannoun
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a person or thing that excavates.
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a power-driven machine for digging, moving, or transporting loose gravel, sand, or soil.
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a sharp, spoonlike instrument used for scraping out diseased tissue, as in dentistry.
Etymology
Origin of excavator
Example Sentences
Examples are provided to illustrate real-world usage of words in context. Any opinions expressed do not reflect the views of Dictionary.com.
In most cases the “mummy portraits”—as the paintings are called—came to be pried or detached from the full mummy by excavators, archaeologists or thieves.
“Gentry Engineering and Gentry were aware of the danger of a rock strike by the excavator and failed to take action to prevent a fire,” the lawsuit alleges.
From Los Angeles Times
At the Greenland School of Minerals and Petroleum, a dozen students in hi-viz vests and helmets are out for the day learning to operate bulldozers, dump trucks, excavators and other equipment.
From Barron's
The sights of excavators and hazmat suits this week prompted a sigh of relief from Palisadians worried about the health risks of the potentially toxic debris.
From Los Angeles Times
Behind her were two 20-tonne narrowboats waiting to be rescued by an imposing winch machine in a nearby field with the help of a specialist excavator.
From Barron's
Definitions and idiom definitions from Dictionary.com Unabridged, based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2023
Idioms from The American Heritage® Idioms Dictionary copyright © 2002, 2001, 1995 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company.
