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gnaw

Pronunciation: /nɔː/

The English word “gnaw” has 4 meanings listed here.

verb

  1. To bite something persistently, especially something tough.
  2. To produce excessive anxiety or worry.
  3. To corrode; to fret away; to waste.

noun

  1. The act of gnawing.

Etymology

From Middle English gnawen, gnaȝen, from Old English gnagan, from Proto-West Germanic *gnagan, from Proto-Germanic *gnaganą (“to gnaw”), probably from Proto-Indo-European *gʰnēgʰ- (“to gnaw, scratch”). Cognate with Dutch knagen, German nagen, Danish gnave (“to gnaw”), Norwegian Bokmål gnage, Norwegian Nynorsk gnaga, Swedish gnaga.

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Definitions are from Wiktionary, extracted by Kaikki.org, and are available under the CC BY-SA 4.0 licence.