gnaw
Example Sentences
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What’s missing, and might well gnaw at a viewer, is whether regenerative farming can feed the world.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Jun. 2, 2026
It is the three mistakes leading to a goal - the highest in the league - which will gnaw away, though.
From BBC ● Jan. 26, 2026
While beetles gnaw away and burrow through the phloem under the trees' bark, the much smaller, flightless adelgid sucks out the trees' fluids and leaves behind a toxic saliva.
From Science Daily ● May 14, 2024
Only this time, instead of letting the anxiety gnaw at her confidence, she accepted its presence, took a deep breath, and put on the kind of show that is hers and hers alone.
From Seattle Times ● Dec. 22, 2023
Siddhartha thought yearningly and bitterly about his son, nursed his love and feeling of tenderness for him, let the pain gnaw at him, underwent all the follies of love.
From "Siddhartha" by Hermann Hesse
Artificial intelligence could be the boogeyman that gnaws at market share.
From Barron's ● Feb. 4, 2026
It only compounded the pain that gnaws at him.
From Los Angeles Times ● Jan. 10, 2026
"Hunger is not something you can ignore or put out of your mind, it gnaws at your insides with increasing intensity," she continued, adding that hunger is particularly disruptive for children.
From BBC ● Nov. 19, 2025
It gnaws at you; it can feel like it takes up a lot of space and energy with no clear solution.
From Seattle Times ● Apr. 29, 2024
She gnaws on her lower lip, something she does when she is thinking hard.
From "Finding Junie Kim" by Ellen Oh
At the same time, concerns that gnawed at investors before the beginning of the war haven’t disappeared, either.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Mar. 31, 2026
He frustratedly gnawed on a piece of gum as he trotted back to the dugout.
From Los Angeles Times ● May 9, 2025
Trees have been gnawed and felled and the water levels are much higher than when we visited previously.
From BBC ● Aug. 13, 2024
When she was a vegan-curious teenager, it gnawed at her that giving up animal products could mean sacrificing sports.
From Salon ● Jul. 15, 2024
I was frowning; he gnawed on his lower lip.
From "Please Ignore Vera Dietz" by A.S. King
As he wrote, “the body of the charter has been unfortunately gnawn by rats” — a comment that carries grim symbolism today, as we take up the task the rats left unfinished.
From Salon ● Jul. 23, 2012
Yet her denunciations seemed prophetic: or rather were feeble descriptions of the excruciating pangs by which I am hourly gnawn!
From Anna St. Ives by Thomas Holcroft
I was so confoundedly numbed and gnawn, between cold and hunger, that I don't think I could have remembered my father, I don't, faith! before I had recruited.
From The Wanderer (Volume 1 of 5) or, Female Difficulties by Fanny Burney
On the east side a strange section of gray lava and ash is gnawn into caves.
From At Last by Charles Kingsley
Now the scorned unlucky lad Rousing from his pillow gnawn Mans his heart and deep and glad Drinks the valiant air of dawn.
From Last Poems by A. E. Housman by A. E. (Alfred Edward) Housman
But I be a grawed wummon now—an' yet caan't feel it so—not yet.
From Lying Prophets by Eden Phillpotts
The stwons that built George Ridler's oven, And thauy keum from the Bleakeley's Quaar; And George he wur a jolly old mon, And his yead it grawed above his yare.
“The childer—they grawed to love me that dear—also the men an’ women.
From Children of the Mist by Eden Phillpotts
I hopes I'll hit so hard as faither hisself wan day, when I'm grawed.
From Lying Prophets by Eden Phillpotts
Iss fay, I've grawed to b'lieve truly our Joan was saved, spite of all.
From Lying Prophets by Eden Phillpotts
Then comes the second wave: a low, gnawing horror at what you might have done.
From BBC ● Oct. 6, 2026
Riffing on the human need for emotional engagement through the arts with such venom is not just a slap in the face; it’s evidence of Iñárritu’s gnawing insecurities.
From Salon ● Oct. 5, 2026
He’s more comfortable in his Bed-Stuy apartment than at the Sunset Tower, exposed brick now behind him, his dog Wednesday nearby gnawing at her paw.
From Los Angeles Times ● Sep. 7, 2026
For Lee, the sting of rejection gave way to a gnawing fear that she would end up struggling for money until she died.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Aug. 20, 2026
Enlisting the aid of the beaver’s highly capable molars, the badger left him gnawing away at a yew sapling in the orchard while she went off to find an arrow that would fit her brainchild.
From "Redwall" by Brian Jacques
Vocabulary lists containing gnaw
The Silent Treatment: Words Plagued by Silent Letters
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Unit 1: Telling Details
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Where the Red Fern Grows
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