grate

• enPR: grāt, IPA^(key): /ɡɹeɪtʰ/, /ɡɹeɪt̚ʔ/

• Audio (US)

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• Rhymes: -eɪt
• Homophone: great

Perhaps from a Late Latin or Vulgar Latin grata, from a Latin word for a hurdle; or Italian grata, from Latin cratis.

grate (plural grates)

1. A horizontal metal grill through which water, ash, or small objects can fall, while larger objects cannot.

   The grate stopped the sheep from escaping from their field.

   • Shakespeare

     a secret grate of iron bars

2. A frame or bed, or kind of basket, of iron bars, for holding fuel while burning.

• grill

grate (third-person singular simple present grates, present participle grating, simple past and past participle grated)

1. (transitive) To furnish with grates; to protect with a grating or crossbars.

   to grate a window

Borrowed from Old French grater (“to scrape”) ( > French gratter), from Frankish *krattōn, from Proto-Germanic *krattōną. Cognate with Old High German krazzon[1] ( > German kratzen (“to scrawl”) > Danish kradse ), Icelandic krassa (“to scrawl”) [2] and Danish kratte.

grate (third-person singular simple present grates, present participle grating, simple past and past participle grated)

1. (transitive, cooking) To shred things, usually foodstuffs, by rubbing across a grater.

   I need to grate the cheese before the potato is cooked.

2. (intransitive) To make an unpleasant rasping sound, often as the result of rubbing against something.
   • 1856, Gustave Flaubert, Madame Bovary, Part 3 Chapter X, translated by Eleanor Marx-Aveling

     The gate suddenly grated. It was Lestiboudois; he came to fetch his spade, that he had forgotten. He recognised Justin climbing over the wall, and at last knew who was the culprit who stole his potatoes.

   • 1918, W. B. Maxwell, chapter 7, in The Mirror and the Lamp:

     The turmoil went on—no rest, no peace. […] It was nearly eleven o'clock now, and he strolled out again. In the little fair created by the costers' barrows the evening only seemed beginning; and the naphtha flares made one's eyes ache, the men's voices grated harshly, and the girls' faces saddened one.

   Listening to his teeth grate all day long drives me mad.

   The chalk grated against the board.

3. (by extension, intransitive) To grate on one’s nerves; to irritate or annoy.

   She’s nice enough, but she can begin to grate if there is no-one else to talk to.

4. (by extension, transitive, obsolete) To annoy.
   • Shakespeare

     News, my good lord Rome […] grates me.

Latin gratus (“agreeable”).

grate (comparative more grate, superlative most grate)

1. (obsolete) Serving to gratify; agreeable.

   (Can we find and add a quotation of Sir T. Herbert to this entry?)

grate (comparative more grate, superlative most grate)

1. Obsolete spelling of great
   • 1800's Mary Woody A true account of Nayomy Wise

     He promisd her a grate reward

• 'Gater, Greta, ergat-, great, great-, retag, targe, terga

• IPA^(key): /ˈɡrate/

grate f

1. feminine plural of grato

• terga

From grātus (“agreeable”).

• (Classical) IPA^(key): /ˈɡraː.teː/

grātē (comparative grātius, superlative grātissimē)

1. gladly, willingly
2. gratefully, thankfully

• grate in Charlton T. Lewis and Charles Short (1879) A Latin Dictionary, Oxford: Clarendon Press
• grate in Charlton T. Lewis (1891) An Elementary Latin Dictionary, New York: Harper & Brothers