Word.ws English Dictionary

pick away at

pick away at verb: to continually or inexorably harm someone; to continue to do harm; to needle over time; to weaken someone over time.

Verb

pick away at (third-person singular simple present picks away at, present participle picking away at, simple past and past participle picked away at)

  1. To continually or inexorably harm someone; to continue to do harm; to needle over time; to weaken someone over time.

Forms of pick away at

third-person singular presentpicks away at
present participlepicking away at
past participlepicked away at
pastpicked away at

Questions about pick away at

What does pick away at mean?
Pick away at means to continually or inexorably harm someone; to continue to do harm; to needle over time; to weaken someone over time.
What part of speech is pick away at?
Pick away at is a verb.
What is the past tense of pick away at?
The past tense of pick away at is picked away at.

Words near pick away at in the dictionary

  1. pick and place
  2. pick and pop
  3. pick and roll
  4. pick apart
  5. pick at
  6. pick away at
  7. pick bids off the wall
  8. Pick bodies
  9. Pick body
  10. pick by order
  11. pick by voice

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: pick away at (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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