verb ·Rare ·Advanced level

Definitions

Verb

1. 1
   To gnaw; to eat away at. archaic, transitive

   "The worm of conscience still begnaw thy soul."

Synonyms

All synonyms

eat away

Example

More examples

"The worm of conscience still begnaw thy soul."

Etymology

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

Related phrases

eat away

Data sourced from Wiktionary, WordNet, CMU, and other open linguistic databases. Updated March 2026.