chip away
"chip-away" is a 8-letter English headword indexed on PlainSpell.
The verdict
“chip away” is uncommon English (outside the top frequency list), classed as a verb. The kind of spelling people second-guess.
- Unranked
- below top-frequency English
- 9
- letters
According to Wiktionary data (CC BY-SA, analyzed September 3, 2026) - To reduce or weaken bit by bit; often used with at.
Corpus desk
Index EN-chip-away · chip away · English
chip away · unranked · 0 variants · 0 confusables
- FREQ-UNRANKED Unranked
- LEN-LONG 9 letters
- VOW-4 4 vowels
- CONFUS-0 No pairs
- VAR-0 0 variants
- BOOK-THIN "C" thin
- PHOTO-UNK Peer pending
Read with this headword: Spelling guide for this pattern
Desk codes from Wiktionary headword shape, FrequencyWords rank tier, confusable-pair count, generated misspelling depth, letter-cohort book size, and photo-finish peer. Not a difficulty grade.
| Property | Value |
|---|---|
| Headword | chip away |
| Language | English |
| Part of speech | Verb |
| Letters | 9 |
| Misspellings tracked | 0 |
| Confusable pairs | 0 |
| Source | Wiktionary (kaikki.org) |
Long-tail rank of “chip away” in English
Rare enough to double-check
chip away is uncommon English outside the top frequency list, classed as averb. Rarity is why readers land here mid-draft. Gloss: "To reduce or weaken bit by bit; often used with at.".
The misspelling generator found no plausible variants for chip away, typically a sign the spelling maps closely to how the word sounds. We don't track a confusable pairing for this entry, since its spelling is unusual enough that it doesn't cluster with a lookalike.
This headword's origin isn't recorded in our source data, leaving phoneme-to-grapheme mapping as the best guide to its spelling rather than a borrowing history. The correct English form is chip away, spelled C-H-I-P- -A-W-A-Y.
Definition
- 1To reduce or weaken bit by bit; often used with at.
Recorded use
Wiktionary examplesThese source excerpts show how chip away appears in context. They illustrate usage; the definition above remains the entry’s reference meaning.
Iraneus contrasts the unity and integrity of these writings with the distorted, contextless citations of the Gnostics. He describes the code of textual harassment that allows these heretics to chip away at the Scriptures, […]
Matthew Towers, senior industry analyst at Frost & Sullivan, thinks the PowerPC will gradually build market share over the next several years. “They'll ‘chip’ away at Intel, but slowly,” he says.
Synonyms
This word in other languages
Definitions, pronunciation, and etymology for this entry are drawn from Wiktionary via the kaikki.org structured extract (CC BY-SA). See the methodology for how each field is sourced and updated.