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• whittle
  whittle

  verb (used with object)

  to cut, trim, or shape (a stick, piece of wood, etc.) by carving off bits with a knife.
• Whittle
  Whittle

  noun

  Sir Frank, 1907–96, English engineer and inventor.

whittle

¹ American  

[hwit-l, wit-l] / ˈʰwɪt l, ˈwɪt l /

verb (used with object)

• whittles,
  present (3rd person singular)
• whittled,
  past participle,  past
• whittling
  present participle

1. to cut, trim, or shape (a stick, piece of wood, etc.) by carving off bits with a knife.

2. to form by whittling.

   to whittle a figure.

3. to cut off (a bit).

4. to reduce the amount of, as if by whittling; pare down; take away by degrees (usually followed by down, away, etc.).

   to whittle down the company's overhead; to whittle away one's inheritance.

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verb (used without object)

• whittles,
  present (3rd person singular)
• whittled,
  past participle,  past
• whittling
  present participle

1. to whittle wood or the like with a knife, as in shaping something or as a mere aimless diversion.

   to spend an afternoon whittling.

2. to tire oneself or another by worrying or fussing.

noun

1. British Dialect. a knife, especially a large one, as a carving knife or a butcher knife.

Whittle ² American  

[hwit-l, wit-l] / ˈʰwɪt l, ˈwɪt l /

noun

1. Sir Frank, 1907–96, English engineer and inventor.

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Whittle ¹ British  

/ ˈwɪtəl /

noun

1. Sir Frank. 1907–96, English engineer, who invented the jet engine for aircraft; flew first British jet aircraft (1941)

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whittle ² British  

/ ˈwɪtəl /

verb

1. to cut or shave strips or pieces from (wood, a stick, etc), esp with a knife

2. (tr) to make or shape by paring or shaving

3. (tr; often foll by away, down, off, etc) to reduce, destroy, or wear away gradually

4. dialect (intr) to complain or worry about something continually

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noun

1. dialect a knife, esp a large one

Whittle Scientific  

/ wĭt′l /

1. British aeronautical engineer and inventor who developed the first aircraft engine powered by jet propulsion in 1937.

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Other Word Forms

Derived Forms

• whittler
  noun

Inflected Forms

Participles

• whittling
  present
• whittled
  past

Conjugated Forms

Present

• whittle
  simple
• whittles
  simple
• have whittled
  perfect
• has whittled
  perfect
• am whittling
  progressive
• are whittling
  progressive
• is whittling
  progressive
• have been whittling
  perfect progressive
• has been whittling
  perfect progressive

Past

• whittled
  simple
• had whittled
  perfect
• was whittling
  progressive
• were whittling
  progressive
• had been whittling
  perfect progressive

Future

• will whittle
  simple
• will have whittled
  perfect
• will be whittling
  progressive
• will have been whittling
  perfect progressive

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Etymology

Origin of whittle

1375–1425; late Middle English (noun), dialectal variant of thwitel knife, Old English thwīt ( an ) to cut + -el -le

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Explanation

To whittle is to pare or carve away. Wood carvers whittle pieces of wood, removing bit by bit until what's left is a sailor with a yellow raincoat or a lone wolf howling at the moon. Whittle can also mean to reduce an amount or number of items. In this sense, it is commonly paired with the words away or down. A courtroom attorney might "whittle away" at a defendant's alibi until the truth emerges. You might "whittle down" a to-do list or "whittle away" at your student loan debt every month. But only a highly skilled wood carver can whittle a chunk of pine into that old salty dog with a yellow raincoat.

Example Sentences

See Examples For:

whittle Whittle whittles whittled whittling

Trendforce, a research firm, said China’s manufacturing advantage could help it whittle away at America’s lead, since it could deploy humanoids faster at scale.

From MarketWatch ● Oct. 2, 2026

For more than a decade, I’ve been teaching a course at the California Institute of the Arts called American Drama Now, and each year the selection of plays has become harder to whittle down.

From Los Angeles Times ● Jun. 29, 2026

Trying to whittle down thousands of players from 22 tournaments spread over almost a century to pick the top 10 World Cup legends of all time.

From BBC ● Jun. 11, 2026

If you have a highly concentrated stock allocation with large built-up gains, you can gradually whittle down your position and use the $6,000 deduction to minimize or cancel the tax hit, Adams says.

From Barron's ● Apr. 25, 2026

She could whittle a slice of wood to fit it—and pack it securely with mutowa sap and wild cotton fiber.

From "A Girl Named Disaster" by Nancy Farmer

Whittle was born in Coventry in 1907 and joined the RAF in 1923, training as an aircraft mechanic and graduating from RAF Cranwell as an officer in 1928.

From BBC ● Jul. 23, 2026

The stamps come in two sets, the first featuring four images of Whittle and his engines, while the second shows eight iconic British jet aircraft.

From BBC ● Jul. 23, 2026

In a separate visit later in the day, the King opened the University of Cambridge's new £58m Whittle Laboratory.

From BBC ● Jul. 20, 2026

Bex Whittle, from Redmarley, has used the baby bank on and off for 16 months.

From BBC ● Mar. 26, 2026

A man who was not at church on Sunday evening, in the opinion of Mrs. Whittle, must be drunk in a saloon, or robbing somebody, for where else could he be?

From The Mystery of the Locks by Edgar Watson Howe

That’s because inflation whittles away at the real purchasing power of those future interest payments.

From MarketWatch ● Jun. 17, 2026

Continuing to work whittles away at what time we have left to travel and enjoy the rest of the world.

From The Wall Street Journal ● Nov. 19, 2025

Then, executive producer Michaels whittles a pile of 40 or so sketches down to about 15 — maybe 10 that everyone agrees on, plus another five outliers.

From Los Angeles Times ● Feb. 13, 2025

This event often whittles down the primary field to a handful of candidates.

From Reuters ● Aug. 16, 2023

The Damasio team whittles it down to one.

From "Phineas Gage" by John Fleischman

As federal officials have whittled down the countries that still qualify for Temporary Protected Status, Salvadorans make up the largest population of remaining beneficiaries.

From Los Angeles Times ● Sep. 9, 2026

That marks the reversal of a 15-year period when company buybacks and mergers-and-acquisitions activity whittled down the actual number of shares out there to invest, giving stocks fuel to keep rising, said McElligott.

From MarketWatch ● Jun. 11, 2026

That percentage rises to almost 59% when those fixtures are whittled down to just competitive qualifiers, which after this summer will ultimately have been responsible for taking the Tartan Army to three tournaments.

From BBC ● May 28, 2026

In the days before the trial, the more than 20 claims that Musk had leveled at Altman and his associates were whittled down to just two: breach of charitable trust and unjust enrichment.

From The Wall Street Journal ● May 16, 2026

The sky was a black curtain; the stars, ice chips whittled by an old knife.

From "Chains" by Laurie Halse Anderson

The first line of defense is knowing what the government is allowed to come after with Medicaid estate recovery, then working on whittling that pile down to nothing.

From MarketWatch ● Aug. 25, 2026

He describes his efforts as “more akin to whittling at a piece of wood—for I am removing word after word until what remains seems to be the truth.”

From The Wall Street Journal ● Jul. 23, 2026

County’s population has been whittling down for the last decade, with 400,000 people leaving since 2016.

From Los Angeles Times ● May 29, 2026

Billed as a fundraiser, the debt-ridden centre said the money from the portfolios would go towards whittling down a long list of overdue bills, including unpaid wages for educators.

From BBC ● Sep. 24, 2025

“Here thy whittling will be more at home,” said the friar, settling Robin in a small trundle cart and giving him the pieces of the little cross which was almost finished.

From "The Door in the Wall" by Marguerite de Angeli

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Related Words

• diminish
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• lessen
• pare
• shave
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