0 present participle of whittle
1 to make something from a piece of wood by cutting off small, thin pieces:
Practising architecture is asking oneself questions, finding one's own answers with the help of the teacher, whittling down, finding solutions.
The philosophy is easy-first parsing - we make the easy calls first, whittling away at the harder decisions in the process.
From a distance, all of these efforts appear as whittling away at the bark of, say, an old growth trunk.
Use-wear analysis provides evidence of bone/shell whittling and cutting in the front of the room and of whittling, cutting, and grooving on the room bench itself.
We have no intention of whittling away that position.
Are we adequately provided with playgrounds, and if we are not, how can we justify this whittling down?
For most people, better industrial relations is more about improved co-operation, partnership and consultation than about court injunctions and whittling away some remaining employee rights.
If ever there was a method of whittling down our traditional systems of collective bargaining, that was it.
