How to Use whittle down in a Sentence

whittle down

verb

• Ready to whittle down your own pantry and start shopping your kitchen?
  — Heather Riske, Better Homes & Gardens, 29 Jan. 2026
• Six townhall meetings were held, and the list was whittled down to four names.
  — Jemma Stephenson, San Diego Union-Tribune, 25 Feb. 2026
• Arsenal’s lead at the top of the table has been whittled down to just four points.
  — Graham Ruthven, Forbes.com, 29 Jan. 2026
• The Monforts whittled down a list of 20 to a select few.
  — Brittany Ghiroli, New York Times, 21 Apr. 2026
• But the decades have whittled down the vibrant community of the past.
  — Hannah Brueske, Twin Cities, 31 May 2026
• Every move has the same price and whittles down your season’s allotment of moves.
  — Michael Salfino, New York Times, 11 Mar. 2026
• That field was whittled down to five then four before Warsh emerged as the selection.
  — Jeff Cox, CNBC, 30 Jan. 2026
• Eventually, yes, but first, the dozens of women who show up in hopes of making the team will have to be whittled down.
  — Keith Phipps, Vulture, 19 Aug. 2026
• The state has used those dollars to whittle down its hefty pension debt but still owes more than $33 billion in this area.
  — Keith M. Phaneuf, Hartford Courant, 3 Feb. 2026
• The 2026 free-agent class has been whittled down by stars signing extensions with their current teams.
  — Peter Baugh, New York Times, 22 June 2026
• But more than that, a longer time horizon also gives you more time to build equity, whittle down your loan balance, and make the costs of your loan worth it.
  — Aly J Yale, CBS News, 24 Apr. 2026
• Trejo said the options had been whittled down from thousands of titles suggested in a statewide teachers survey.
  — Andrew Lapin, Sun Sentinel, 16 Feb. 2026
• But could the difference really be whittled down to 36 inches?
  — Jeff Howe, New York Times, 7 Feb. 2026
• In the years since, a series of treaties and agreements between the two countries gradually whittled down that number.
  — Cybele Mayes-Osterman, USA Today, 5 Feb. 2026
• Not much has changed as the screenings did not seem to whittle down the batch of pilots significantly, so testing results may help break some ties.
  — Nellie Andreeva, Deadline, 1 May 2026
• Visa likened it to winning the lottery, then seeing the eventual check whittled down drastically.
  — Jason Ma, Fortune, 8 Aug. 2026
• Zebby Matthews found himself on the outside looking in this spring as the Twins whittled down the number of starters in camp from six to five.
  — Betsy Helfand, Twin Cities, 14 May 2026
• Ultimately, the agency whittled down its deficit to $66 million.
  — Jillian Taylor, StateImpact, 30 June 2026
• The Warriors committed nine turnovers in the second quarter, and saw a 21-point lead whittled down to just nine by halftime.
  — Joseph Dycus, Mercury News, 16 Mar. 2026
• While Brooks initially told Groening the shorts would be about two minutes long, they were drastically whittled down.
  — Tereza Shkurtaj, PEOPLE, 7 June 2026
• After training camp, the roster will be whittled down from 90 players to 53 players prior to the start of the season.
  — Nick Harris, Fort Worth Star-Telegram, 27 Apr. 2026
• My sister and her family recently started whittling down my defenses.
  — Paul Stephen, San Antonio Express-News, 11 Mar. 2026
• Asking the public for a third round of tax increases feels like a political nonstarter, but so does whittling down his workers’ benefits.
  — Bob Herman, STAT, 18 Aug. 2026
• Now, after careful review by over 80 industry veterans, that number has been whittled down to the final nine.
  — Alexandra Hildreth, Vogue, 24 Apr. 2026
• However, not only were those plans quickly moved to the backburner, but the second shift was cut and the workforce was whittled down – not by layoffs, but via attrition.
  — Alicia Wallace, CNN Money, 6 Mar. 2026
• And that's especially important, Troiano said, as more states whittle down the number of competitive seats.
  — Ashley Lopez, NPR, 22 Feb. 2026
• All players learn a full sentence per play call, then words are periodically whittled down until just one word remains in September.
  — Haley Sawyer, Oc Register, 4 Mar. 2026
• In June, when Lopez’s family returned to the courthouse for the trial readiness conference, their numbers had been whittled down again.
  — Ariane Lange, Sacbee.com, 6 Aug. 2026
• The survivors, drifting on the open ocean, are then whittled down by hunger and thirst, by the varied dangers of the Pacific, and eventually by one another.
  — Eva Holland, The Atlantic, 30 Apr. 2026
• The field whittles down from 70 to 30 golfers, with the season victor revealed after the Tour Championship.
  — Steven Louis Goldstein, New York Times, 31 July 2026