grate [ME] Grate, ‘to shred’, is from Old French grater ‘grate, scratch’, of Germanic origin; it is related to German kratzen ‘to scratch’. People have been saying that something grates upon them since the early 17th century. The grate in a fire [ME] was originally a general word for ‘a grating’: it too comes from Old French, based on Latin cratis ‘hurdle’, also found in griddle [ME], grill [M17th], grille [M17th], and grid [M19th], which is a back-formation from gridiron [ME].