WHITTLING Synonyms: 68 Similar and Opposite Words

whittling

verb

Definition of whittling

present participle of whittle

as in cutting

to cause to diminish gradually by or as if by cutting off bits with a knife He was sitting on the porch, whittling a stick.

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Example Sentences

Examples are automatically compiled from online sources to show current usage. Read More Opinions expressed in the examples do not represent those of Merriam-Webster or its editors. Send us feedback.

Recent Examples of whittling The film eventually ballooned to six hours before Gibney began whittling it back. — Los Angeles Times, 6 Oct. 2026 Voters set up races for four Orange County commission seats in November by whittling casts of candidates to two in districts 2, 6, 7 and 8. — Stephen Hudak, The Orlando Sentinel, 19 Aug. 2026 This man is whittling a star for the tree and standing up for eldest daughters everywhere? — Maggie Fremont, Vulture, 11 July 2026 New York was down by as much as 16 points in Game 5 before slowly whittling the Spurs’ lead away. — Ryan Gaydos, FOXNews.com, 14 June 2026 The authors disagreed with that earlier assessment, concluding that the bone marks were more consistent with whittling using a sharp implement. — Jennifer Ouellette, ArsTechnica, 11 June 2026 Leaders have reinforced that narrative by whittling their workforces in the name of AI. — Emma Burleigh, Fortune, 1 June 2026 In a normal year, casting director Jesse Tannenbaum and his team sift through 25,000 applications, per Backstage, whittling them down to just 18 players per season. — Charlotte Walsh, PEOPLE, 20 May 2026 Crystal Palace, Leeds United and Nottingham Forest have all made their excuses and left the fight for Premier League survival, whittling it down to just two potential candidates to join Burnley and Wolverhampton Wanderers in the Championship next season. — Philip Buckingham, New York Times, 12 May 2026

Recent Examples of Synonyms for whittling

Verb

This change is apparent in the fact that European governments, too, are cutting funding for religious freedom advocacy.

— Matthew Schmitz, Washington Post, 2 Oct. 2026
In a sign of growing staff unrest over the steady stream of cost-cutting announcements across the BBC, some workers made their feelings known on a Microsoft Teams call earlier this week.

— Jake Kanter, Deadline, 2 Oct. 2026

Definition of cutting

Verb

Gen Z Wants to Go Ghost, Not Girlboss That said, the characters do have to be worth clipping, and love him or hate him, Ryan Murphy has always had a knack for creating fictional people who feel bigger than whatever nonsensical story spawned them.

— Alison Foreman, IndieWire, 6 Oct. 2026
The sequence stylistically excises itself from the episode as though clipping it, anticipating its excision from the show when uploaded to a video-sharing platform.

— Harmon Siegel, Artforum, 1 Oct. 2026