I. nib ‧ ble 1 /ˈnɪb ə l/ BrE AmE verb
[ Date: 1500-1600 ; Origin: Perhaps from Low German nibbeln 'to chew bits off' ]
1 . [intransitive and transitive] to eat small amounts of food by taking very small bites:
He nibbled the biscuit cautiously.
nibble at
There’s a fish nibbling at my bait.
nibble on
He nibbled on a piece of raw carrot.
2 . [transitive] to gently bite someone in a loving way:
He began to nibble her ear affectionately.
nibble away at something phrasal verb
to take away small amounts of something so that the total amount is gradually reduced:
All these expenses are nibbling away at our savings.
The Scottish National Party is beginning to nibble away at Labour’s majority.
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THESAURUS
▪ bite to use your teeth to cut, crush, or chew something:
The dog bit me!
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I sometimes bite my fingernails when I’m nervous.
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He bit into the apple.
▪ chew to keep biting something that is in your mouth:
Helen was chewing a piece of gum.
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He was chewing on a cigar.
▪ gnaw if an animal gnaws something, it bites it repeatedly:
The dog was in the yard gnawing on a bone.
▪ nip somebody/give somebody a nip to give someone or something a small sharp bite:
When I took the hamster out of his cage, he nipped me.
▪ nibble to take a lot of small bites from something:
A fish nibbled at the bait.
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She sat at her desk, nibbling her sandwich.
▪ sink your teeth into somebody/something to bite someone or something with a lot of force, so that your teeth go right into them:
The dog sank its teeth into my leg.
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He sank his teeth into the steak.
▪ chomp on something informal to bite something and chew it in a noisy way:
The donkey was chomping on a carrot.
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He was chomping away on big slice of toast.
▪ sting if an insect stings you, it makes a very small hole in your skin. You use sting about bees, wasps, and scorpions, and bite about mosquitoes, ants, spiders, and snakes:
She stepped on a wasps’ nest and must have been stung at least 20 times.
II. nibble 2 BrE AmE noun
1 . [countable] a small bite of something
nibble of
She took a nibble of her cookie.
2 . nibbles [plural] informal small things to eat, like ↑ crisp s and ↑ peanut s , especially at a party
3 . [singular] a small amount of interest in something:
We’ve had the house on the market for a month and not even had a nibble yet.