Another word for dig out

hilly plateaus are still in the same geological phase, and are dotted with numberless lakes and ponds, while the rivers continue to dig out their yet undetermined channels.

Quicker or slower, the water that fills it will wash in sand and mud, and year by year this process will go on till ultimately the whole reservoir is filled up. The embankment is raised, and raised again, but at last it is better to abandon it and make a new tank elsewhere, for it would never pay to dig out the silt by manual labour.

To replace a damaged area, dig out a square of turf using a half-moon edging iron.

It is dug using a mattock to strip the turf and break up the hardest ground and a spade to dig out the earth.

I shall have to dig out the large placard from whichever cupboard it is in.