chip away

present singular third person chips away · participle present chipping away · participle past chipped away · past chipped away

1. idiomaticintransitiveTo reduce or weaken bit by bit; often used with at.

   Antismoking groups continue their efforts to chip away at the public support for smoking as well as at the favorable treatment of tobacco products.

   1997, Robert L. Heath, Strategic Issues Management: Organizations and Public Policy Challenges, SAGE Publications, →ISBN, page 77

   3 more examples

   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, […]

   1991, Jan Gorak, The Making of the Modern Canon: Genesis and Crisis of a Literary Idea, page 24

   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.

   1995 June 15, John Edwards, quoting Matthew Towers, “How the Chips Fall”, in CIO, volume 8, number 17, CXO Media, Inc., →ISSN, page 76

   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.

   2023 July 26, Howard Johnston, “Regional News: North West”, in RAIL, number 988, page 28

2. Used other than figuratively or idiomatically: see chip, away.

   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.

   1967, Barbara Norman, “Pelmeny and Other Dumplings”, in The Russian Cookbook […], New York, N.Y.: Atheneum, →LCCN, →OCLC, page 83

   Synonyms: plug away, beaver away