See chip away in All languages combined, or Wiktionary
{
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{
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},
{
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202
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"ref": "1991, Jan Gorak, The Making of the Modern Canon: Genesis and Crisis of a Literary Idea, page 24:",
"text": "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, […]",
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"ref": "1995 June 15, John Edwards, quoting Matthew Towers, “How the Chips Fall”, in CIO, volume 8, number 17, CXO Media, Inc., →ISSN, page 76:",
"text": "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.",
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"ref": "1997, Robert L. Heath, Strategic Issues Management: Organizations and Public Policy Challenges, SAGE Publications, →ISBN, page 77:",
"text": "Antismoking groups continue their efforts to chip away at the public support for smoking as well as at the favorable treatment of tobacco products.",
"type": "quotation"
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"ref": "2023 July 26, Howard Johnston, “Regional News: North West”, in RAIL, number 988, page 28:",
"text": "Darcy Lever: Bolton Council has rejected a plan to build 112 homes across the trackbed of the former Bury line. It is concerned that it would prevent any future extension of Manchester Metrolink, and chip away at green space land.",
"type": "quotation"
}
],
"glosses": [
"To reduce or weaken bit by bit; often used with at."
],
"id": "en-chip_away-en-verb-XRHoNVX7",
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[
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],
"raw_glosses": [
"(idiomatic, intransitive) To reduce or weaken bit by bit; often used with at."
],
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{
"_dis1": "100 0",
"code": "fr",
"lang": "French",
"lang_code": "fr",
"sense": "to reduce or weaken bit by bit",
"word": "ébrécher"
},
{
"_dis1": "100 0",
"code": "fr",
"lang": "French",
"lang_code": "fr",
"sense": "to reduce or weaken bit by bit",
"word": "réduire petit à petit"
},
{
"_dis1": "100 0",
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"lang_code": "hu",
"sense": "to reduce or weaken bit by bit",
"word": "farigcsál"
},
{
"_dis1": "100 0",
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"sense": "to reduce or weaken bit by bit",
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"_dis1": "100 0",
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"lang_code": "mr",
"roman": "kātṇe",
"sense": "to reduce or weaken bit by bit",
"word": "कातणे"
},
{
"_dis1": "100 0",
"code": "pl",
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"lang_code": "pl",
"sense": "to reduce or weaken bit by bit",
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"word": "nadszarpywać"
},
{
"_dis1": "100 0",
"code": "pl",
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"sense": "to reduce or weaken bit by bit",
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"perfective"
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"word": "nadszarpnąć"
},
{
"_dis1": "100 0",
"code": "ro",
"lang": "Romanian",
"lang_code": "ro",
"sense": "to reduce or weaken bit by bit",
"word": "ciopli"
},
{
"_dis1": "100 0",
"code": "es",
"lang": "Spanish",
"lang_code": "es",
"sense": "to reduce or weaken bit by bit",
"word": "mellarse"
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]
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"ref": "1967, Barbara Norman, “Pelmeny and Other Dumplings”, in The Russian Cookbook […], New York, N.Y.: Atheneum, →LCCN, →OCLC, page 83:",
"text": "Siberian households used to store the little half-moon or triangular meat-stuffed dumplings in earthenware jars, buried in the ice; the ice was chipped away with an axe to get at the pelmeny jars.",
"type": "quotation"
}
],
"glosses": [
"Used other than figuratively or idiomatically: see chip, away."
],
"id": "en-chip_away-en-verb-Zk-iWGjW",
"links": [
[
"chip",
"chip#English"
],
[
"away",
"away#English"
]
],
"related": [
{
"_dis1": "0 100",
"word": "salami tactics"
}
],
"synonyms": [
{
"_dis1": "0 100",
"word": "plug away"
},
{
"_dis1": "0 100",
"word": "beaver away"
}
]
}
],
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"tags": [
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"word": "chip away"
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"Pages with 1 entry",
"Pages with entries",
"Terms with French translations",
"Terms with Hungarian translations",
"Terms with Marathi translations",
"Terms with Polish translations",
"Terms with Romanian translations",
"Terms with Spanish translations"
],
"forms": [
{
"form": "chips away",
"tags": [
"present",
"singular",
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},
{
"form": "chipping away",
"tags": [
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"present"
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163
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"text": "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.",
"type": "quotation"
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54
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"ref": "1997, Robert L. Heath, Strategic Issues Management: Organizations and Public Policy Challenges, SAGE Publications, →ISBN, page 77:",
"text": "Antismoking groups continue their efforts to chip away at the public support for smoking as well as at the favorable treatment of tobacco products.",
"type": "quotation"
},
{
"bold_text_offsets": [
[
200,
209
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"ref": "2023 July 26, Howard Johnston, “Regional News: North West”, in RAIL, number 988, page 28:",
"text": "Darcy Lever: Bolton Council has rejected a plan to build 112 homes across the trackbed of the former Bury line. It is concerned that it would prevent any future extension of Manchester Metrolink, and chip away at green space land.",
"type": "quotation"
}
],
"glosses": [
"To reduce or weaken bit by bit; often used with at."
],
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[
"reduce",
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],
[
"weaken",
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],
[
"bit by bit",
"bit by bit"
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"(idiomatic, intransitive) To reduce or weaken bit by bit; often used with at."
],
"tags": [
"idiomatic",
"intransitive"
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"ref": "1967, Barbara Norman, “Pelmeny and Other Dumplings”, in The Russian Cookbook […], New York, N.Y.: Atheneum, →LCCN, →OCLC, page 83:",
"text": "Siberian households used to store the little half-moon or triangular meat-stuffed dumplings in earthenware jars, buried in the ice; the ice was chipped away with an axe to get at the pelmeny jars.",
"type": "quotation"
}
],
"glosses": [
"Used other than figuratively or idiomatically: see chip, away."
],
"links": [
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"tags": [
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"synonyms": [
{
"word": "plug away"
},
{
"word": "beaver away"
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],
"translations": [
{
"code": "fr",
"lang": "French",
"lang_code": "fr",
"sense": "to reduce or weaken bit by bit",
"word": "ébrécher"
},
{
"code": "fr",
"lang": "French",
"lang_code": "fr",
"sense": "to reduce or weaken bit by bit",
"word": "réduire petit à petit"
},
{
"code": "hu",
"lang": "Hungarian",
"lang_code": "hu",
"sense": "to reduce or weaken bit by bit",
"word": "farigcsál"
},
{
"code": "hu",
"lang": "Hungarian",
"lang_code": "hu",
"sense": "to reduce or weaken bit by bit",
"word": "kikezd"
},
{
"code": "mr",
"lang": "Marathi",
"lang_code": "mr",
"roman": "kātṇe",
"sense": "to reduce or weaken bit by bit",
"word": "कातणे"
},
{
"code": "pl",
"lang": "Polish",
"lang_code": "pl",
"sense": "to reduce or weaken bit by bit",
"tags": [
"imperfective"
],
"word": "nadszarpywać"
},
{
"code": "pl",
"lang": "Polish",
"lang_code": "pl",
"sense": "to reduce or weaken bit by bit",
"tags": [
"perfective"
],
"word": "nadszarpnąć"
},
{
"code": "ro",
"lang": "Romanian",
"lang_code": "ro",
"sense": "to reduce or weaken bit by bit",
"word": "ciopli"
},
{
"code": "es",
"lang": "Spanish",
"lang_code": "es",
"sense": "to reduce or weaken bit by bit",
"word": "mellarse"
}
],
"word": "chip away"
}
Download raw JSONL data for chip away meaning in English (5.1kB)
This page is a part of the kaikki.org machine-readable English dictionary. This dictionary is based on structured data extracted on 2026-10-25 from the enwiktionary dump dated 2026-10-01 using wiktextract (f9fe161 and 6f96ddf). The data shown on this site has been post-processed and various details (e.g., extra categories) removed, some information disambiguated, and additional data merged from other sources. See the raw data download page for the unprocessed wiktextract data.
If you use this data in academic research, please cite Tatu Ylonen: Wiktextract: Wiktionary as Machine-Readable Structured Data, Proceedings of the 13th Conference on Language Resources and Evaluation (LREC), pp. 1317-1325, Marseille, 20-25 June 2022. Linking to the relevant page(s) under https://kaikki.org would also be greatly appreciated.