のような他動詞的用法もある。 これはRust is eating my front door away.でもよい。 (Keikoさんが調べてくれた説明)
Colonel Robert Callum lay in bed, a terrible disease eating away at
him. ( The Lion's Game P.656 )
よく似た表現
Looking around almost every child was malnourished, some with pot bellies and the tell-tale orange hair of kwashiorkor, the type of malnutrition that leaves your body bloated with fluid, and with open wounds. Others were emaciated and frail, with protruding ribs - their bodies starving to death slowly by wasting away.