Gnaw
noun, verb ·Moderate ·High school level
Definitions
- 1 The act of gnawing.
"have a gnaw of a bone"
- 1 To bite something persistently, especially something tough. ambitransitive
"The dog gnawed the bone until it broke in two."
- 2 become ground down or deteriorate wordnet
- 3 To produce excessive anxiety or worry. intransitive
"Her comment gnawed at me all day and I couldn't think about anything else."
- 4 bite or chew on with the teeth wordnet
- 5 To corrode; to fret away; to waste.
"VVots thou vvho's returnd, / The unthrift Bonvile, ragged as a ſcarre-crovv / The VVarres have gnavv'd his garments to the skinne: […]"
Example
More examples""But ne'er the town, by Destiny assigned, / your walls shall gird, till famine's pangs constrain / to gnaw your boards, in quittance for our slain.""
Etymology
From Middle English gnawen, gnaȝen, from Old English gnagan, from Proto-West Germanic *gnagan, from Proto-Germanic *gnaganą (“to gnaw”), probably from Proto-Indo-European *gʰnēgʰ- (“to gnaw, scratch”). Cognate with Dutch knagen, German nagen, Danish gnave (“to gnaw”), Norwegian Bokmål gnage, Norwegian Nynorsk gnaga, Swedish gnaga.
Related phrases
More for "gnaw"
Data sourced from Wiktionary, WordNet, CMU, and other open linguistic databases. Updated March 2026.