exhumation
- noun
- /ˌɛksjuˈmeɪʃən/
- Specialized
- I'd yet to do an exhumation that had gone as planned.
- mass exhumations
Examples
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The police requested an exhumation to investigate the circumstances surrounding the death.
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The exhumations bring the subject out into the open and provide closure after many years of silence.
Academic text (2006) -
Do you have any idea how hard it is to get an exhumation order?
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But with each exhumation, there are fewer restrictions and more access to information and archives.
Academic text (2006) -
There may be other exhumations we have to do.
Fiction book (1994) -
Judge Witherspoon is issuing a court order for exhumation.
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A traveling minister describes an exhumation in his daily log on September 3, 1810.
Blog text (1) -
Mounds of earth mark the site of the exhumations.
Fiction book (1994) -
If we didn't have these exhumations, there wouldn't be as many conferences, courses, and interest as there are now.
Academic text (2006) -
The regime had kept death records—including execution orders—so the case didn't require mass exhumations and forensic examinations of bodies.
Academic text (2007)
Synonyms
Digging up buried human remains for a court or scientific investigation
Removing earth to uncover something buried, like an old object or body
How Formal
Surface Forms
Morphology
Etymology
Exhumation comes from the parts ex- meaning 'out' and humus meaning 'ground' or 'soil', so it is like 'taking something out of the ground'. That's why an exhumation usually means digging up a buried body or object to examine it again.