Other forms: whittled, whittling, whittles
To whittle is to cut small pieces off wood to shape it. Whittle a stick, whittled from oak, sat there whittling.
It is done with one knife and no other tool, and it is slow by nature — which is why it is the classic image of somebody passing the time. Whittle down means to reduce gradually: whittle down the list, whittled away. Note that the noun whittle once meant a large knife.
1verbwhittleTo cut small pieces off wood to shape it.
“Grandpa whittled a little wooden bird for me with his pocketknife.”
2verbreduceTo reduce gradually, with down.
“They whittled nine names down to four.”
whittle is a shaping by cutting.
Middle English whittel means a large knife, altered from thwitel, from an Old English verb meaning to cut.
Proto-Indo-European
*twey- — to shake, hurl, toss
Proto-Germanic
*þwītaną
Old English
þwītan — to strike down, whittle
Middle English
whittel — large knife
English, today
whittle
Built from
From Middle English whittel (“large knife”), an alteration of thwitel, itself from thwiten (“to whittle”), from Old English þwītan (“to strike down, whittle”), from Proto-Germanic þwītaną, possibly from Proto-Indo-European twey- (“to shake, hurl, toss”). Compare Old Norse þveita (“to hurl”), Ancient Greek σείω (“I shake”). Related to thwite and thwaite.
Etymology from Wiktionary, CC BY-SA