Etymology

begnaw

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Today it means: To gnaw; to eat away at. Full definition →

Middle English *begnawen ← Old English begnagan
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The story

  1. Old English · inherited frombegnagan“to begnaw, gnaw all over”
  2. Middle English · inherited from*begnawen
  3. English todaybegnaw

From Middle English *begnawen, from Old English begnagan (“to begnaw, gnaw all over”), equivalent to be- + gnaw.

Etymology from Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.