Hi Ines! This is a tough one! You could say: - Her comments were beginning to eat up his self-confidence. - She knew what to say to aim right at my insecurities. - Rivals may impair one's profits by undercutting prices. Although none of these alternatives is a perfect substitute. Hope this helps :)

Hi Ines, How about something like these? : - Her comments were beginning to chip away at his self-confidence Her comments were beginning ERODE his self-confidence - She knew what to say to chip away at my insecurities. She knew what to say to FURTHER EXPOSE my insecurities. (This one is not that great. Couldn't think of anything better) - rivals may chip away at one's profits by undercutting prices - Rivals may EAT INTO one's profits by undercutting prices

1) Her comments were beginning to diminish his self-confidence. 2) She knew what to say to ease my insecurities. 3) Rivals may vie for profits by undercutting prices. Hope that helps! Brant

Thanks Steve!

You can't find any reference information about the idiom "chip away"?! If I type those two words into Google then I immediately get a definition. It's not a great definition, but at least it's something I could use in my question to demonstrate that I've done at least something to help myself. The way I would explain "chip away" is to picture yourself as a sculptor standing in front of a HUGE cubic block of marble. Your task is to sculpt a human figure. You have a hammer and chisel. You hold the chisel against a corner of the block of marble and you hit the chisel with the hammer. A tiny chip of marble flies off. If you repeat this "chipping" process hundreds of thousands of times over months then you're gradually "chipping away" at the marble block and hopefully revealing the shape of a person. That's stage 1: getting the right mental model of the idiom. Once you have that, you should be able to figure out what other expressions are equivalent. Having seen "chip away" and "erode" (for example) both used in context, so that you understand what they mean, it then naturally follows that you can equate them.