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Longman Dictionary of Contemporary English
whittle
verb
COLLOCATIONS FROM CORPUS
■ ADVERB
away
▪ The village was, as she had thought, a dump, where time was whittled away in some vintage manner.
▪ They are behind federal agencies in other parts of the country and overseas in whittling away at piles of backlogged work.
▪ While waiting he brought out a penknife and began whittling away a table-top.
▪ One Sunday he was whittling away when he was reminded by a page that it was the Sabbath.
▪ Visitors can even whittle away time at the airport's 143 shops and 23 eateries while awaiting flights.
▪ And scurvy all the while whittled away at the crew, killing six to ten men every day.
▪ Ever since Donald had taken over the management of the company, Robert's role had been gradually whittled away.
▪ Under government ownership, the grazing land was gradually whittled away by privately owned farms.
down
▪ The planned 75 % reduction in the permitted catch of hake was whittled down to 41 %.
▪ This was whittled down to three for this event, including me.
▪ This is good because it allows you to whittle down those superior numbers.
▪ This war is a bid by the Tigrayan nationalists to whittle down their northern neighbour.
▪ That figure was whittled down, but was still much higher than the Government was prepared to bankroll.
▪ You can rely on these keen-eyed bowmen to whittle down the enemy's numbers as they advance.
EXAMPLES FROM OTHER ENTRIES
▪ He took out his penknife and began whittling a piece of wood.
▪ The list of candidates has been whittled down from 61 to 12.
EXAMPLES FROM CORPUS
▪ Many of the recent suggestions for change have sought to whittle down that authority.
▪ Red and Roy whittle the lead back down to nine.
▪ That whittled the field down from the white pages of the Paris phone book.
▪ The village was, as she had thought, a dump, where time was whittled away in some vintage manner.
▪ This is good because it allows you to whittle down those superior numbers.
▪ Visitors can even whittle away time at the airport's 143 shops and 23 eateries while awaiting flights.
The Collaborative International Dictionary
Whittle

Whittle \Whit"tle\, n. [AS. hw[=i]tel, from hwit white; akin to Icel. hv[=i]till a white bed cover. See White.]

  1. A grayish, coarse double blanket worn by countrywomen, in the west of England, over the shoulders, like a cloak or shawl.
    --C. Kingsley.

  2. Same as Whittle shawl, below.

    Whittle shawl, a kind of fine woolen shawl, originally and especially a white one.

Whittle

Whittle \Whit"tle\, n. [OE. thwitel, fr. AS. pw[=i]tan to cut. Cf. Thwittle, Thwaite a piece of ground.] A knife; esp., a pocket, sheath, or clasp knife. ``A butcher's whittle.''
--Dryden. ``Rude whittles.'' -- Macaulay.

He wore a Sheffield whittle in his hose.
--Betterton.

Whittle

Whittle \Whit"tle\, v. t. [imp. & p. p. Whittled; p. pr. & vb. n. Whittling.]

  1. To pare or cut off the surface of with a small knife; to cut or shape, as a piece of wood held in the hand, with a clasp knife or pocketknife.

  2. To edge; to sharpen; to render eager or excited; esp., to excite with liquor; to inebriate. [Obs.]

    ``In vino veritas.'' When men are well whittled, their tongues run at random.
    --Withals.

Whittle

Whittle \Whit"tle\, v. i. To cut or shape a piece of wood with am small knife; to cut up a piece of wood with a knife.

Dexterity with a pocketknife is a part of a Nantucket education; but I am inclined to think the propensity is national. Americans must and will whittle.
--Willis.

Douglas Harper's Etymology Dictionary
whittle

1550s, "to cut thin shavings from (something) with a knife," from Middle English whittel "a knife," especially a large one (c.1400), variant of thwittle (late 14c.), from Old English þwitan "to cut," from Proto-Germanic *thwit- (cognates: Old Norse þveita "to hew"), from PIE root *twei- "to agitate, shake, toss." Figurative sense is attested from 1746. Related: Whittled; whittling.

Wiktionary
whittle

Etymology 1 n. A knife; especially, a pocket knife, sheath knife, or clasp knife. vb. 1 (context transitive or intransitive English) To cut or shape wood with a knife. 2 (context transitive English) To reduce or gradually eliminate something (such as a debt). 3 (context transitive figurative English) To make eager or excited; to excite with liquor; to inebriate. Etymology 2

n. 1 (context archaic English) A coarse greyish double blanket worn by countrywomen, in the west of England, over the shoulders, like a cloak or shawl. 2 (context archaic English) A whittle shawl; a kind of fine woollen shawl, originally and especially a white one.

WordNet
whittle

v. cut small bits or pare shavings from; "whittle a piece of wood" [syn: pare]

Wikipedia
Whittle

Whittle may refer to:

  • Whittling, the carving of wood with a knife
  • Whittle (name), a surname, and a list of people with the name
  • Whittle (game show), a game show on Channel 5 presented by Tim Vine
  • Whittle, Kentucky
  • Whittle, Derbyshire, a hamlet near Glossop, Derbyshire, United Kingdom
  • Whittle Bus & Coach, a bus company, now part of East Yorkshire Motor Services
Whittle (game show)

Whittle is a UK game show for Channel 5, hosted by comedian Tim Vine. The show aired throughout the channel's first two broadcasting years, from 31 March 1997 to 21 June 1998. It was shown at 18:00 (later 17:30) as part of a quiz block with the series 100%. The game show is similar to Everybody's Equal, the Chris Tarrant-presented ITV game show.

UKGameshows.com said that "despite its obviously inexpensive roots", the game show "works fairly well".

Whittle (name)

Whittle is a surname. Notable people with the surname include:

  • Professor Alasdair Whittle, British Archaeologist specialising in the Neolithic
  • Albert Whittle (1877–1917), English cricketer
  • Alex Whittle (born 1993), English footballer
  • Bill Whittle (born 1959) American conservative
  • Chris Whittle (born 1947), American entrepreneur who founded Channel One News and Edison Schools, Inc
  • Daniel Webster Whittle (1840–1901), American gospel song writer
  • Francis McNeece Whittle (1823-1902), Episcopal bishop of Virginia
  • Frank Whittle (1907–1996), British RAF officer who invented the jet engine
  • Gordon Whittle, Australian rugby league footballer
  • Gwendolyn Yates Whittle (born 1961), sound editor
  • Jason Whittle (born 1975), American football player
  • Jenny Whittle (born 1973), Australian basketball player
  • John Woods Whittle (1882–1946), Australian soldier and recipient of the Victoria Cross
  • Kennon C. Whittle (1891–1967), judge, Virginia Supreme Court of Appeals
  • Lesley Whittle (1957–1975), English murder victim
  • Peter Whittle (born 1927), New Zealand mathematician and statistician
  • Stafford G. Whittle (1849–1931), judge, Virginia Supreme Court of Appeals
  • Professor Stephen Whittle (born 1955), British transsexual activist
  • Thomas Whittle the Elder (1803–1887), English watercolourist

Usage examples of "whittle".

All-Soul being whittled down into fragments, yet this is what they would be doing, annulling the All-Soul--if any collective soul existed at all--making it a mere piece of terminology, thinking of it like wine separated into many portions, each portion, in its jar, being described as a portion of the total thing, wine.

Equally determined that no such horrifying revelation should be made, Pauline Whittle and her husband were clinging grimly to the edges of the pillowcase, and so successful were their joint efforts that, by the sheer weight of their bodies, Quintus Bland was borne off center and crumpled clatteringly back in his chair.

Knowing him to be hungry, they whittled down his rations, then laughed at him when, to keep alive, he crept from the camp evenings and crawled about the island in search of purslane and gnetum seeds and other scraggly growing things to munch raw when the cramps bent him.

His parents had even kept his little treasures: a wooden frog he had whittled and painted, under the instruction of the head gardener, a couple of battered shuttlecock racquets that needed restringing, and a bag of marbles, swirled with amber, scarlet, and blue.

She cast a last glance to the hilltop where Throm stood with arms outflung, the sharp wind whittling his flesh away.

I whittled as sharp a point as I could on one end while the young Chron watched me avidly.

Practiced fingers whittled away at the dart foreshaft he crafted so carefully.

Knowing him to be hungry, they whittled down his rations, then laughed at him when, to keep alive, he crept from the camp evenings and crawled about the island in search of purslane and gnetum seeds and other scraggly growing things to munch raw when the cramps bent him.

Court in a matter of that gravity, we would whittle the concept of justiciability down to the stature of minor or conventional controversies.

His face, his chest, hips, legs, everything but his bones and them, too, he believed at times, had been whittled away, the shavings of Waff en SS Captain Luis de Vega must be lying in a trash bin somewhere in the Berlin recovery ward of his previous eleven months.

With her bronze blade she whittled a splinter of wood into a fine-tooth comb and spent hours each day under the gun carriage combing the nits out of her long, golden hair, and from the tufts of her body hair.

Although four Justices are recorded as concurring in the opinion, their accompanying opinions whittle their concurrence in some instances to the vanishing point.

I want you to whittle some pegs about a foot long, about an inch thick, and I want them peeled.

The slender cleric sat on a fallen log whittling the finishing touches into the butt of a staff.

And old Rufus the woodchopper, who had whittled things for her since she could remember.