~ (away) (at / on sth) to keep biting sth or chewing it hard, so that it gradually disappears:
[VN] The dog was gnawing a bone. * [V] Rats had gnawed through the cable * She gnawed at her fingernails. * (figurative) Self-doubt began to gnaw away at her confidence.
PHRASALVERBS
gnaw at sb to make sb feel anxious, frightened or uncomfortable over a long period of time:
The problem had been gnawing at him for months. * Fear gnawed at her soul.
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About this entry
This is a English–English dictionary entry.
Sourced from Main Dictionary in Lughet's collection.
This word also appears under other sources in Lughet's collection — see the list below.
This entry for gnaw is sourced from Main Dictionary, one of the dictionaries and corpora merged into Lughet.
Is gnaw a noun, verb, or something else?
In this entry, gnaw is tagged as verb.
Does gnaw appear elsewhere on Lughet?
Yes — gnaw appears under other sources or language pairs in Lughet's collection. See the list below.
What is Lughet?
Lughet is a free trilingual dictionary covering nearly five million entries across Uyghur, Chinese, and English, drawn from more than ten source dictionaries and corpora.
