gnawing

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“
Surely they could not hear him gnawing--gnawing frantically at his board behind the boxes.

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Definitions (1)

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  1. The act of continued biting, consuming, or fretting. Nowe therefore let vs here rehearse the contencion of familiar thinges, the gnawing at the heartes, and the freating of mindes & vowes, promises and requestes made of diuerse persones. Hall, Hen. VII., an. 19.

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Examples (50)

  • A secret like this must be as a gnawing worm, and, strong as she may be in courage, must shorten her existence but for the support and the balm she may receive from the ministers of our faith. —  The Phantom Ship
  • He's a-gnawing away at me awful. —  Rob Harlow's Adventures A Story of the Grand Chaco
  • They were gnawing, like beasts, upon unclean food. —  Return of Tarzan
  • They all possess long front teeth for gnawing, and constitute the Order of Rodents. —  The Bird Study Book
  • The great mass of humanity should never learn to read and write_--_never And instead of this gnawing, gnawing disease of mental consciousness and awful, unhealthy craving for stimulus and for action, we must substitute genuine action. —  Fantasia of the Unconscious
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Roget's II Roget's II: The New Thesaurus

Allen's Allen's Synonyms and Antonyms

Used in the same contextWord Family

gnawing:   gnaw ·  gnawed
Roget's II: The New Thesaurus, Third Edition by the Editors of the American Heritage® Dictionary. Copyright © 2003, 1995 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. All rights reserved.

Etymologies (1)

Toggle Century etymologies Century Dictionary (1)

  1. from Middle English gnawinge = Dutch knaging; verbal noun of gnaw, v.
 

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