Whittle
From Mereja Words
Contents
English
Noun
Whittle (plural Whittles)- A large knife.
Verb
Whittle (third-person singular simple present Whittles, present participle whittling, simple past and past participle whittled)
- (transitive or intransitive) To cut or shape wood with a knife.
- (transitive) To reduce or gradually eliminate something (such as a debt).
Derived terms
Thesaurus
amputate, ax, bisect, blade, butcher, carve, chop, cleave, cold steel, cut, cut away, cut in two, cut off, cutlery, cutter, dagger, dichotomize, dissever, edge tools, excise, fissure, gash, hack, halve, hew, incise, jigsaw, knife, lance, naked steel, pare, pigsticker, point, prune, puncturer, rend, rive, saw, scissor, sever, sharpener, slash, slice, slit, snip, split, steel, sunder, sword, tear, toad sticker
Etymology
From Middle English whittel (“large knife”), an alteration of thwitel, itself from thwiten (“to whittle”), from Old English thwitan. Compare Old Norse þveita (“to hurl”)
Pronunciation
Translations
Noun
Verb
cut or shape wood with a knife
reduce or gradually eliminate something
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References
- Webster's Seventh New Collegiate Dictionary, Springfield, Massachusetts, G.&C. Merriam Co., 1967
