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🚧 Digging to find pipes 🕳️ Cave exploring
potholing

potholing

7.0
Digging small, careful holes to find and check underground pipes or cables
  • noun
  • /ˈpɔːθˌhoʊlɪŋ/
  • Specialized
translation icon : excavación
  • The construction team used potholing to safely identify the location of underground cables before digging.

Examples

  • Before starting the main excavation, workers performed potholing to check for hidden pipes.

  • Proper potholing can prevent accidental damage to water or gas lines during roadwork.

  • The team is potholing to find the water pipes.

  • They often engage in potholing during maintenance work.

  • The construction team used potholing to safely identify the location of underground cables before digging.

  • Before starting the main excavation, workers performed potholing to check for hidden pipes.

  • Proper potholing can prevent accidental damage to water or gas lines during roadwork.

Synonyms

digging
vspotholing
83 1.0

Making a hole in the ground using tools like a shovel

uses small controlled holes to find or inspect underground utilities
excavation
vspotholing
9 5.4

A hole in the ground made by digging, often for building or finding old things

uses smaller targeted digs to check buried services rather than large sites
boring
vspotholing
  • Specialized
7.7

A hole made by drilling into rock or under the ground using a machine

uses shallow controlled openings to inspect pipes and cables, not deep cores

How Extensive

pit
230 3.6
to trench
2 4.6
potholing
  • Specialized
7.0
borehole
  • Specialized
4 6.8

Surface Forms

potholing singular
potholings plural

Morphology

potholing = pothole (opaque) = pothole + ing

Although formed from 'pothole' + the activity suffix '-ing', this sense refers to a specialised utility-inspection excavation rather than the everyday idea of a road hole, so learners cannot reliably infer the technical purpose.

Etymology

Potholing comes from the word pothole, which is a small dug hole used to find or check underground pipes and cables, so potholing means digging these small holes to see where utilities are.