whittle down
phrasal verb
whittled down; whittling down; whittles down
: to gradually make (something) smaller by removing parts
We whittled the list down to four people.
Examples of whittle down in a Sentence
Recent Examples on the Web
The list of Federal Reserve Chair candidates has been whittled down to five from 11, Treasury sources tell CNBC.
—
Alex Harring, CNBC, 10 Oct. 2025
Outside of Europe, several continents across the rest of the world are still whittling down their candidates for the 2026 World Cup finals.
—Jack Bantock, New York Times, 10 Oct. 2025
In the last three years, the newsroom’s bargaining unit has been whittled down from around 450 to a little more than 200 members.
—Katie Kilkenny, HollywoodReporter, 9 Oct. 2025
To whittle down the field, the IBM team developed chemical foundation models trained on billions of molecules.
—Andrew Moseman, IEEE Spectrum, 1 Oct. 2025
See All Example Sentences for whittle down
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Alex Harring, CNBC, 10 Oct. 2025
Outside of Europe, several continents across the rest of the world are still whittling down their candidates for the 2026 World Cup finals.
—Jack Bantock, New York Times, 10 Oct. 2025
In the last three years, the newsroom’s bargaining unit has been whittled down from around 450 to a little more than 200 members.
—Katie Kilkenny, HollywoodReporter, 9 Oct. 2025
To whittle down the field, the IBM team developed chemical foundation models trained on billions of molecules.
—Andrew Moseman, IEEE Spectrum, 1 Oct. 2025
See All Example Sentences for whittle down
Cite this Entry
“Whittle down.” Merriam-Webster.com Dictionary, Merriam-Webster, https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/whittle%20down. Accessed 20 Oct. 2025.
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