earthwork

[ urth-wurk ]

noun

1. excavation and piling of earth in connection with an engineering operation.
2. Military. a construction formed chiefly of earth for protection against enemy fire, used in both offensive and defensive operations.
3. an artistic work that consists of a large-scale alteration or modification of an area of land in a configuration designed by an artist or of an artist's sculptural installation, as in a museum or gallery, of soil, rock, or similar elemental materials.

earthwork

/ ˈɜːθˌwɜːk /

noun

1. excavation of earth, as in engineering construction
2. a fortification made of earth

Word History and Origins

Origin of earthwork¹

First recorded in 1625–35; earth + work

Example Sentences

“It was going to be almost a vocal earthwork,” said Aitken, who tends to think and speak in floating, unearthly concepts.

From Los Angeles Times

Land art in Malibu gets a second chance, as the artist Lita Albuquerque redraws her “Malibu Line,” an ultra-vivid blue earthwork that connects earth, ocean and sky.

From New York Times

It’s now celebrated for bridging Light and Space art — like the perceptual experiments of Robert Irwin — and the Earthwork movement, which was, for too long, defined by male artists of the 1960s and ’70s such as Michael Heizer and Robert Smithson, who used heavy machinery like bulldozers to transform — some say scar — the land.

From New York Times

In a separate, cavernous space, large mounds of earth displaced by the digging materialize like a massive earthwork.

From Los Angeles Times

“To be honest, it’s hard to evaluate that number,” he says of the study’s earthwork prediction.

From Scientific American

Related Words

• dike
• foxhole
• gorge
• gully
• moat
• pit
• trough
• waterway