un ‧ earth /ʌnˈɜːθ $ -ˈɜːrθ/ BrE AmE verb [transitive]
[ Word Family: noun : ↑ earth , ↑ earthling , ↑ earthiness ; adjective : ↑ earthy , ↑ earthly ≠ ↑ unearthly , ↑ earthen ; verb : ↑ unearth ; adverb : earthward(s)]
1 . to find something after searching for it, especially something that has been buried in the ground or lost for a long time:
Farmers still sometimes unearth human bones here.
In one shop, I unearthed a wonderful collection of 1920s toys.
2 . to find information or the truth about something or someone SYN dig up :
The inquiry unearthed some disturbing evidence.
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THESAURUS
▪ find to get or see something that you have been searching for:
Have you found your passport yet?
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Police later found the car abandoned in a wood.
▪ discover to find something that was hidden or that people did not know about before:
A second bomb has been discovered in south London.
▪ locate formal to find the exact position of something:
The airline are still trying to locate my luggage.
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Online maps make it easy to locate almost any place in the world.
▪ come across something to find something unexpectedly when you are not looking for it:
I came across some old letters from my father in my drawer.
▪ stumble on/across something to find something unexpectedly, especially something very important:
They may have stumbled across some vital evidence.
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Completely by chance we had stumbled on the biggest hit of the year.
▪ trace to find someone or something that has disappeared, especially by a careful process of collecting information:
She had given up all hope of tracing her missing daughter.
▪ track somebody/something down to find someone or something that is difficult to find by searching in different places:
I’ve been trying to track down a book that’s out of print.
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The police managed to track down the killer.
▪ unearth to find something that has been hidden or lost for a long time, by digging or searching for it:
In 1796, a carved stone was unearthed near the burial mound.