WordNet
v. cut away in small pieces [syn: whittle down, wear away]
Usage examples of "whittle away".
Should she recall the strike, wait until she'd had a chance to whittle away at this unanticipated threat?
How many rush hither and thither and wear down the patience of earnest counsellors, and whittle away all the best years of their lives to nothingness, in fretting and scratching among ruins for the law by which they may live!
She hesitated, not wanting to whittle away the magic on nonessentials before Ducon returned.
She, too, wanted to rend-to whittle away at the couple across the table, take their privacies, turn over their humiliations like worrybeads.
Patrols continued to observe Concacasalle, and snipers were sent out day and night to whittle away the German force.
D'Stevenson had continued to whittle away, always the snapping terrier at the prosecution's heels.
We can whittle away at Hamor, but we never have had the resources to take on the Empire directly, at least not since the fall of Fairhaven.
Originally it was going to be quite large, but Mary had the architect whittle away at it—.