whittling

1. (usually in the plural) A chip or shaving whittled from some larger substance.plural-normally

2. (figurative, by extension) The reducing of something by degrees, especially at the expense of some effort.Examples: "a whittling down"; "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."broadlyfiguratively