Websters Dictionary 1828
This online edition has been carefully prepared in a special format. All words, definitions, and examples have been preserved, but the explanations of word origins have been left out to make the data easier to use in a digital format. We have also removed Webster's long technical introduction for the same reason.
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Gnaw
GNAW, verb transitive naw. [ Gr. to scrape.]
1. To bite off by little and little; to bite or scrape off with the fore teeth; to wear away by biting. The rats gnaw a board or plank; a worm gnaws the wood of a tree or the plank of a ship.
2. To eat by biting off small portions of food with the fore teeth.
3. To bite in agony or rage.
They gnawed their tongues for pain. Revelation 16:10.
4. To waste; to fret; to corrode.
5. To pick with the teeth.
His bones clean picked; his very bones they gnaw
GNAW, verb intransitive naw. To use the teeth in biting.
I might well, like the spaniel, gnaw upon the chain that ties me.