Word.ws English Dictionary

chip away

chip away verb: to reduce or weaken bit by bit; often used with at.

Verb

chip away (third-person singular simple present chips away, present participle chipping away, simple past and past participle chipped away)

  1. (idiomatic, intransitive) To reduce or weaken bit by bit; often used with at.
    • Iraneus contrasts the unity and integrity of these writings with the distorted, contextless citations of the Gnostics. He describes the code of textual harassment that allows these heretics to chip away at the Scriptures, […]1991, Jan Gorak, The Making of the Modern Canon: Genesis and Crisis of a Literary Idea, page 24
    • Matthew Towers, senior industry analyst at Frost & Sullivan, thinks the PowerPC will gradually build market share over the next several years. “They'll ‘chip’ away at Intel, but slowly,” he says.1995 June 15, John Edwards, quoting Matthew Towers, “How the Chips Fall”, in CIO, volume 8, number 17, CXO Media, Inc., →ISSN, page 76

chip away meaning in Marathi

chip away in Marathi

to reduce or weaken bit by bit
कातणे kātṇe

Examples of chip away in a sentence

  • Antismoking groups continue their efforts to chip away at the public support for smoking as well as at the favorable treatment of tobacco products.1997, Robert L. Heath, Strategic Issues Management: Organizations and Public Policy Challenges, SAGE Publications, →ISBN, page 77:
  • It is concerned that it would prevent any future extension of Manchester Metrolink, and chip away at green space land.2023 July 26, Howard Johnston, “Regional News: North West”, in RAIL, number 988, page 28:

Synonyms of chip away

Forms of chip away

third-person singular presentchips away
present participlechipping away
past participlechipped away
pastchipped away

Questions about chip away

What does chip away mean?
Chip away means to reduce or weaken bit by bit; often used with at.
What is chip away in Marathi?
Chip away in Marathi is कातणे (kātṇe). See Chip away meaning in Marathi.
How do you use chip away in a sentence?
Antismoking groups continue their efforts to chip away at the public support for smoking as well as at the favorable treatment of tobacco products.
What part of speech is chip away?
Chip away is a verb.
What is the past tense of chip away?
The past tense of chip away is chipped away.

Words near chip away in the dictionary

  1. chip
  2. chip and charge
  3. chip and gather
  4. chip and PIN
  5. chip at
  6. chip away
  7. chip bap
  8. chip baps
  9. chip barm
  10. chip barms
  11. chip basket

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: chip away (page history and authors). Text available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 license. Word.ws reformatted the entry and added links. Wiktionary data of 2026-09-02.

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Pronunciation audio from Wikimedia Commons, each file under its own free license: en-au-chip away.ogg.

Cite this entry: “chip away.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/chip_away. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.