What does whittle down mean?

whittle down

Word Rarity Rare

Frequency: Zipf frequency 2.83 in modern English

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verb

Transitive verb

"Only simple men can see the logic in whatever smarter men can whittle down till you can fit it on a sticker."
"To Ukraine, it has become an important line to hold, both to whittle down Russia’s forces and to deprive them of a victory."

whittles down (present, singular) whittling down (participle, present) whittled down (participle, past) whittled down (past)

whittle down to size

How to pronounce whittle down

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