Verb
(transitive) To erode.
The river is eating away at the river bank.
(transitive) To consume or use up, erode or wear away gradually.
The expenses ate away at our profits.
(transitive) To cause to feel uneasy, troubled, worried, guilty, or vexed; to bother about something.
Not confessing that I had stolen the money ate away at me until I could no longer sleep.
Sometimes, however, this sense of isolation, like acid spilling out of a bottle, can unconsciously eat away at a person's heart and dissolve it. Haruki Murakami
Only if some microorganism doesn't attack these tender hothouse plants and eat away at their roots, only if they don't rot! And that can happen with pineapples! Oh, yes, indeed it can! Mikhail Bulgakov
If you want to do something to destroy consumer spending, just eat away at the middle class because the other problem we have is the structural problem of middle class America. Wilbur Ross