the.com/grate
a humble metal grid that exists purely to make smaller things out of bigger ones
means To shred food into small pieces by rubbing it against a rough perforated surface, or the metal grid itself — and, by extension, to irritate by an unpleasant scraping (on the nerves, on the ear).
from From Old French 'grater,' to scrape or scratch, which came from a Frankish root related to scraping — a cousin of the same family that gives us 'scratch' and German 'kratzen.' The food-shredder and the nerve-shredder are the same word: both are things rubbed harshly against a rough edge. The 'grate' meaning a fireplace grid arrived separately, from Latin 'crates,' a wickerwork or lattice — so the bars in your hearth and the tool in your kitchen drawer are unrelated lookalikes that happened to collide in English spelling.
- sound origin
- the verb birthed grating, irritating noises and tempers alike
- latin root
- from cratis, meaning wickerwork or lattice
- homophone trap
- sounds identical to great, fooling spellcheck everywhere
- fireplace duty
- holds burning logs while letting ash fall through
- cheese nemesis
- shreds blocks into clouds via dozens of tiny blades
microplane zester — kitchen tool patented in 1990 by microplane, originally designed for woodworking
box grater — four-sided kitchen grater with different hole sizes, standard in most kitchens since the 1900s
rotary grater — hand-crank grater with drum design, popular for cheese and nutmeg in european cooking