gnaw

English

Etymology

From Old English gnagan, from Proto-Germanic *gnaganą. Cognate with Dutch knagen, German nagen, Swedish gnaga.

Pronunciation

• IPA: /nɔː/

• Audio (US)

  (file)

• Rhymes: -ɔː

Verb

gnaw (third-person singular simple present gnaws, present participle gnawing, simple past gnawed, past participle gnawed or gnawn)

1. (transitive) To bite something persistently.

   The dog gnawed the bone until it broke in two.

2. (intransitive) To produce excessive anxiety or worry.

   Her comment gnawed at me all day and I couldn't think about anything else.

Derived terms

• gnawer
• gnawable

Translations

to bite something persistently

• Albanian: bren (sq)
• Arabic: نخر (ar) (nákhara)
• Armenian: կրծել (hy) (krçel)
• Aromanian: arod (rup)
• Asturian: royer (ast), roer (ast)
• Belarusian: грызці (be) (hrýzci)
• Breton: krignat (br)
• Bulgarian: гриза (bg) (grizá)
• Catalan: rosegar (ca)
• Chinese:

  Mandarin: 啃 (cmn) (kěn), 咬 (cmn) (yǎo), 噬 (cmn) (shì)

• Czech: hlodat (cs), hryzat (cs)
• Dutch: knagen (nl)
• Esperanto: ronĝi (eo)
• Finnish: jyrsiä (fi), jäytää (fi), kalvaa (fi)
• French: ronger (fr)
• Friulian: roseâ
• Galician: roer (gl)
• German: nagen (de)
• Greek: ροκανίζω (el) (rokanízo)
• Hebrew: כִּרְסֵם (he) (kirsém)
• Hungarian: rág (hu)

• Icelandic: naga (is)
• Italian: rodere (it)
• Japanese: 齧る (ja) (かじる, kajiru)
• Latin: rōdō (la)
• Latvian: kost (lv), krimst (lv)
• Macedonian: гриза (mk) (grizá)
• Occitan: rodejar (oc)
• Old Church Slavonic: грꙑзти
• Polish: gryźć (pl)
• Portuguese: roer (pt), morder (pt)
• Romanian: roade (ro)
• Russian: грызть (ru) (gryzt') impf., глодать (ru) (glodát') impf.
• Sardinian: rodere (sc), arroere (sc), roere (sc)
• Serbo-Croatian:

  Cyrillic: глодати (sh)

  Roman: glodati (sh)

• Slovak: hlodať (sk), hrýzť (sk)
• Slovene: gristi (sl)
• Spanish: roer (es)
• Swedish: gnaga (sv)
• Turkish: kemirmek (tr)
• Ukrainian: гризти (uk) (hrýzty)

Anagrams

• Ngwa
• wang, Wang