How to Use whittle away in a Sentence

whittle away

phrasal verb
Definition of whittle awaynext
  • The Heat whittled away at Denver’s lead and closed to within 56-51 at the half.
    — Barry Jackson, Miami Herald, 1 Mar. 2024
  • So the other storylines had to be sort of whittled away, and that’s hard for us.
    — Lauren Puckett-Pope, ELLE, 30 May 2023
  • Jose Islas of Mexico whittled away at Stout’s 2-up lead and tied the match on the 17th hole.
    — Mark Kazlowski, Dallas News, 17 Aug. 2023
  • Los Angeles kept whittling away at the start of the second quarter.
    — Joe Reedy, USA TODAY, 12 Jan. 2024
  • Cheap tactics to try and whittle away at what the voters will likely enshrine.
    — Laura Johnston, cleveland, 6 Sep. 2023
  • Miami whittled away most of the shot clock before Robinson missed a three from the corner.
    — Barry Jackson, Miami Herald, 15 Feb. 2024
  • At the same time, the country’s central bank has steadily added to its gold reserves, while whittling away at its holdings of U.S. debt.
    — Claire Fu, New York Times, 5 May 2024
  • If the sketch came true, the Volvo, Mercedes, Ford, and Audi stylists would soon be frantically whittling away on some fresh five-doors.
    — Larry Griffin, Car and Driver, 15 June 2023
  • That would whittle away at a pillar of the government’s attempt to show Menendez had committed abuse of office.
    — Stanley M. Brand, The Conversation, 24 Sep. 2023
  • Or social media, or smartphones, or any of the myriad things that distract us and whittle away at what's left of our attention spans.
    — Lester Fabian Brathwaite, EW.com, 14 Jan. 2024
  • Some states have whittled away at the rules; Maryland, for example, has scaled back training requirements and background checks.
    — Tribune News Service, The Mercury News, 4 June 2024
  • Indeed, this is a comfortable and accommodating place to whittle away the miles.
    — Dan Edmunds, Car and Driver, 31 May 2023
  • Speakers warned that King's unfinished dream was in danger of being further whittled away.
    — Compiled By Democrat-Gazette Staff From Wire Reports, Arkansas Online, 27 Aug. 2023
  • And everybody knows that as the checks stopped coming, the economy reopened and inflation began to bite, those savings got whittled away.
    — Justin Lahart, WSJ, 26 Sep. 2023
  • This has whittled away green spaces into lots and plots, and that has reduced the number of predators that once would have killed many of the small and large animals that carry ticks to human populations.
    — Jeffrey Kluger, Time, 20 June 2023
  • This phenomenon accounts for recent progress in whittling away at the two to one unemployment ratio amid breakneck hiring over the past two years, Weller added.
    — Max Zahn, ABC News, 3 Feb. 2024
  • The truth is that few Americans today have any understanding of the degree to which the Constitution’s safeguards are being whittled away.
    — Mike Pence, National Review, 19 June 2024
  • The union will press for better wages and working conditions for members who have seen their numbers, wages and benefits whittled away for years, just like those of millions of others in the American job force.
    — Michael Hiltzik, Los Angeles Times, 13 Sep. 2023
  • The computer program still has a chance to whittle away the human players’ lead in the second half of the tournament this week and battle humanity to a statistical draw.
    — IEEE Spectrum, 5 May 2015
  • In 2023, the legislature whittled away at guardianships of the estate, emphasized alternatives to guardianship and encouraged restoration of a ward’s rights.
    — Virginia Hammerle, Dallas News, 13 Aug. 2023
  • The shrinking level of aid, officials and soldiers say, is affecting Ukraine on the battlefield, where Russia is using its advantage in artillery and personnel to whittle away at Ukraine’s defenses.
    — Marc Santora, New York Times, 8 Feb. 2024
  • Others worry that increased efficiency through AI tools could whittle away jobs in areas such as makeup, production and animation.
    — Wendy Lee, Los Angeles Times, 28 May 2024
  • Meanwhile, local roads are more congested, school classrooms are overcrowded and continuing development in some exurban areas has whittled away what used to be scenic farmland.
    — Teo Armus, Washington Post, 26 Apr. 2023
  • But Pétain’s regime, which had, to varying degrees, also administered much of the initial occupied zone, endured, even as the marshal’s power continued to be whittled away by the occupiers and their confederates within his own government.
    — Andrew Stuttaford, National Review, 21 Dec. 2023
  • Defenders of the initiative petition process call Republican efforts to raise the threshold for passing amendments an attack on direct democracy, whittling away at a crucial tool used by voters to bypass the legislature.
    — Kacen Bayless, Kansas City Star, 13 Feb. 2024

Some of these examples are programmatically compiled from various online sources to illustrate current usage of the word 'whittle away.' Any opinions expressed in the examples do not represent those of Merriam-Webster or its editors. Send us feedback about these examples.

Last Updated: