Meaning of Whittling | Babel Free

Definitions

1. A chip or shaving whittled from some larger substance.
   plural-normally
2. The art of carving shapes out of raw wood using a knife.
3. A process of repeatedly shaving slivers from a piece of wood (non-artistic).
4. The reducing of something by degrees, especially at the expense of some effort.
   broadly, figuratively

Equivalents

Examples

“a whittling down”

“Result: nothing would prevent the rapid destruction of the Deco District. Already the developers are calling for a whittling down of the original square mile to a few blocks. The few blocks will no doubt be whittled down to one building, and in the end all that will be left will be a Deco mailbox well pissed on by the local dogs. In another era it was called salami tactics.”

CEFR level