grate.
A horizontal metal grill through which liquid, ash, or small objects can fall, while larger objects cannot.
Meaning & usage
A horizontal metal grill through which liquid, ash, or small objects can fall, while larger objects cannot.
The grate stopped the sheep from escaping from their field.
A frame or bed, or kind of basket, of iron bars, for holding fuel while burning.
A grapper, a metal ring on a lance behind the grip.
Where this word comes from
From Middle English grate, from a Medieval Latin crāta, from a Latin word for a hurdle; or Italian grata, from Latin cratis.
To furnish with grates; to protect with a grating or crossbars.
to grate a window
Where this word comes from
From Middle English grate, from a Medieval Latin crāta, from a Latin word for a hurdle; or Italian grata, from Latin cratis.
To shred (things, usually foodstuffs), by rubbing across a grater.
I need to grate the cheese before the potato is cooked.
To make an unpleasant rasping sound, often as the result of rubbing against something.
Listening to his teeth grate all day long drives me mad.
The chalk grated against the board.
To get on one's nerves; to irritate, annoy.
She’s nice enough, but she can begin to grate if there is no-one else to talk to.
To annoy.
Where this word comes from
From Middle English graten, from Old French grater (“to scrape”) ( > French gratter), from Frankish *krattōn, from Proto-Germanic *krattōną. Cognate with Old High German krazzon ( > German kratzen (“to scrawl”) > Danish kradse), Icelandic krassa (“to scrawl”) and Danish kratte.
Serving to gratify; agreeable.
Where this word comes from
From Latin grātus (“agreeable”).
Obsolete spelling of great.
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Definitions, grammatical labels, IPA, etymology and examples: Wiktionary contributors, extracted by Kaikki / Wiktextract. Adapted under CC BY-SA 4.0. Selected fields and authored examples are shown; third-party quotations and audio are omitted. See contributor history.
Last enriched 2026-09-10. Definitions are in English. Romanizations are shown when supplied by the source; syllable estimates are omitted for unsupported scripts.