GRATE • DICTIONARY ONE.COM • Definition of Grate

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/greɪt/ Listen

noun

Grate n.

A structure or frame containing parallel or crosed bars, with interstices; a kind of latticework, such as is used ia the windows of prisons and cloisters. "A secret grate of iron bars."

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

Grate surface (Steam, Boiler) the area of the surface of the grate upon which the fuel lies in the furnace.

verb

Grate v. t. (past & past part. grated; pres. part. grating) To furnish with grates; to protect with a grating or crossbars; as, to grate a window.

Grate v. t.

To rub roughly or harshly, as one body against another, causing a harsh sound; as, to grate the teeth; to produce (a harsh sound) by rubbing. "On their hinges grate Harsh thunder."

To reduce to small particles by rubbing with anything rough or indented; as, to grate a nutmeg.

To fret; to irritate; to offend. "News, my good lord Rome... grates me."

Grate v. i.

To make a harsh sound by friction. "I had rather hear a brazen canstick turned, Or a dry wheel grate on the exletree."

To produce the effect of rubbing with a hard rough material; to cause wearing, tearing, or bruising. Hence; To produce exasperation, soreness, or grief; to offend by oppression or importunity. "This grated harder upon the hearts of men."

adjective

Grate adj. Serving to gratify; agreeable. (Obs.)

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Etymology of 'Grate'

Collaborative International Dictionary of English 0.48

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"Grate" Quotes from Famous Books

... are one of those who ruin the profession altogether," said a younger woman who had just come up. "They will expect everybody to do the same. This is my day off, but I have to do the grate, and sweep the ward, and make the bed, and tidy the Sister's room—and it's all through people like you. Small thanks you get for it either, for a girl may not even wear her hair in a fringe, and she is always expecting to hear ...

— The Christian - A Story • Hall Caine

... might burn if subjected to fiery arrows; the moat was deepened and water let in from the river; towers were placed at each angle, furnished with loopholes for archers; and over the entrance was a ponderous arch, with grate for raining down fiery missiles, and portcullis to bar all approach to the inner quadrangle, which was ...

— The Rival Heirs being the Third and Last Chronicle of Aescendune • A. D. Crake

... somebody else's, is one of the first laws of nature, health, and virtue. Many an ancient restriction on personal vitality is going the way of the old sumptuary laws. We have all of us amusing memories of those severe old housekeepers who for no inclemency of the weather would allow a fire in the grate before the first of October, and who regarded a fire before that date as a positive breach of the moral law. Such old wives are a type of certain old-fashioned moralists whose icy clutch on our warm-blooded humanity we no longer ...

— Vanishing Roads and Other Essays • Richard Le Gallienne

... the further corners of the saloon there is a plaster statue representing the Muse of Comedy, in the opposite corner a companion figure of Dancing. In the wall on the left, the grate hidden by flowers, is a fireplace with a fender-stool before it, and on either side of the fireplace there is a capacious and richly upholstered arm-chair. A settee of like design stands against the wall on the right between the ...

— The 'Mind the Paint' Girl - A Comedy in Four Acts • Arthur Pinero

... greater the holdings the more must the proprietor trust to the oversight of others—it is evident that the above facts indicate the necessity of more strenuous precautions at this season. Gas pipes and fittings should then be tested; furnace flues and settings looked to; stove, heater, and grate fixtures and connections examined—and in all these particulars the scrutiny should be most closely directed to parts ordinarily covered up or out of sight, so that any defect or weakness from long disuse may be exposed. When to the above ...

— Scientific American, Volume XLIII., No. 25, December 18, 1880 • Various

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