atarazar

An old-fashioned, now uncommon verb meaning to bite or tear something with the teeth — closer to "to gnaw" or "to sink your teeth into" than a single clean bite. Its root, tarazar, is equally rare; modern Spanish almost always uses morder instead.

• El perro atarazaba el hueso con fuerza. — The dog was gnawing at the bone hard.
• La rata había atarazado el saco de grano. — The rat had gnawed through the sack of grain.
• Hoy diríamos que el perro mordió el zapato, no que lo atarazó. — Today we'd say the dog bit the shoe, not that it atarazó it.

Using atarazar in ordinary conversation expecting it to sound natural — it reads as archaic or dialectal, so morder is the verb any learner should actually use for "to bite."

Often confused with morder.