Definition of "eat away" [eat away]

• Gradually to erode or corrode. (verb)

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• "My alfalfa meadows my efficient Jersey cattle, my upland pastures, my brush-covered slopes melting into tilled fields, while ever higher up the slopes my Angora goats eat away brush to tillage!"
• "Ulcers next form around the teeth, and generally eat away the lower edges of the gums, which occasions the teeth to become loose and sometimes to fall out."
• "This mishap sent both of us girls out for our drive with Mamma in very sober spirits, and we did not derive any comfort from the stories she told us of the ravages committed by a species of fish-tail moth, which had been known to devour a wreath of flowers so completely as to leave only the wire foundation behind; or of the digestion of the white ant, who is a sworn foe to all imported woods, and, leaving the veneer untouched so as to conceal his operations, will eat away the legs of a piano, or the whole of an English-made work-table, until the unfortunate piece of furniture collapses suddenly with a crash, having been reduced by gradual stages to the thickness of a sheet of paper."