eat away

Verb

eat away (third-person singular simple present eats away, present participle eating away, simple past ate away, past participle eaten away)

1. (idiomatic, transitive) To physically corrode or erode (something) gradually.
   • The river bank had been eaten away over the years by the flood water.
   • To eate avvay dead fleſh, take Stubbe-vvort, and folde it vp in a red Docke leafe, or red VVort leafe, and ſo roſte it in the hot embers and lay it hot to any ſore, and it vvill fret avvay all the dead fleſh; […]1615, G[ervase] M[arkham], “[The English Hus-wife.] Of the Inward Vertues of the Minde which Ought to Bee in Euery Hous-wife.”, in Countrey Contentments, in Two Bookes: The First, Containing the...

   Synonyms:

   begnaw

2. (figuratively, idiomatic, transitive) To destroy (something) gradually by an ongoing process.
   • At your Table I vvill proue / If I can eate avvay my loue.1602, [John or Joshua Cooke], A Pleasant Conceited Comedie, wherein is Shewed How a Man may Chuse a Good Wife from a Bad. […], London: […] Mathew Lawe, […], →OCLC; reprinted as How a Man may Choose a...
   • [T]hus does politeneſs ſport vvith truth, and eating avvay the ſincerity and humanity natural to man, produce the fine gentleman.1791 (date written), Mary Wollstonecraft, “Morality Undermined by Sexual Notions of the Importance of a Good Reputation”, in A Vindication of the Rights of Woman: With Strictures on Political and...

   Synonyms:

   corrode, erode

3. (figuratively, idiomatic, specifically, transitive) Chiefly followed by at: of a circumstance, incident, etc.: to cause (someone) to feel guilty, troubled, or worried; to bother (see eat away at).
   • The guilt of having lied was eating away at him.
   • Not confessing that I had stolen the money ate away at me until I could no longer sleep.