earthwork
Americannoun
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excavation and piling of earth in connection with an engineering operation.
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Military. a construction formed chiefly of earth for protection against enemy fire, used in both offensive and defensive operations.
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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.
noun
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excavation of earth, as in engineering construction
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a fortification made of earth
Etymology
Origin of earthwork
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.
French artist Marguerite Humeau chose an unusual site for her 2023 earthwork “Orisons.”
From The Wall Street Journal • Mar. 15, 2026
Next, the researchers used computer modeling to analyze known earthwork sites and predict their spread across the Amazon.
From Scientific American • Oct. 5, 2023
Taking into account such variables as temperature, precipitation, soil type, and distance to bodies of water, the researchers estimate that 16,187 earthwork sites remain undiscovered in the Amazon rainforest, they report today in Science.
From Science Magazine • Oct. 4, 2023
High in Spain’s southern mountains, 40 or so people armed with pitchforks and spades cleared stones and piles of grass from an earthwork channel built centuries ago and still keeping the slopes green.
From New York Times • Jul. 19, 2023
One of the mounds at Cahokia is believe to be the largest earthwork in the Americas to have been built before the European invasions.
From "An Indigenous People’s History of the United States" by Roxanne Dunbar-Ortiz
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.
