Definition of "whittling"

whittling

verb
1. present participle and gerund of whittle
noun
plural whittlings
1. (usually in the plural) A chip or shaving whittled from some larger substance.
2. The art of carving shapes out of raw wood using a knife.
3. A process of repeatedly shaving slivers from a piece of wood (non-artistic).
4. (figurative, by extension) The reducing of something by degrees, especially at the expense of some effort.
  Quotations
  Result: nothing would prevent the rapid destruction of the Deco District. Already the developers are calling for a whittling down of the original square mile to a few blocks. The few blocks will no doubt be whittled down to one building, and in the end all that will be left will be a Deco mailbox well pissed on by the local dogs. In another era it was called salami tactics.
  1988, Alexander Cockburn, Corruptions of Empire: Life Studies and the Reagan Era (Haymarket Series)‎, Verso