GRATER

Pronunciation (US):

(GB):

IPA (US):

 Dictionary entry overview: What does grater mean? 

• GRATER (noun)
  The noun GRATER has 1 sense:

1. utensil with sharp perforations for shredding foods (as vegetables or cheese)

  Familiarity information: GRATER used as a noun is very rare.

 Dictionary entry details 

• GRATER (noun)

Sense 1

Meaning:

Utensil with sharp perforations for shredding foods (as vegetables or cheese)

Classified under:

Nouns denoting man-made objects

Hypernyms ("grater" is a kind of...):

kitchen utensil (a utensil used in preparing food)

Derivation:

grate (reduce to small shreds or pulverize by rubbing against a rough or sharp perforated surface)

 Context examples 

She saw before her only a boy, who was shaking her hand with a hand so calloused that it felt like a nutmeg-grater and rasped her skin, and who was saying jerkily:-

(Martin Eden, by Jack London)

The cheeks and arms of Peggotty, so hard and red in my childish days, when I wondered why the birds didn't peck her in preference to apples, are shrivelled now; and her eyes, that used to darken their whole neighbourhood in her face, are fainter (though they glitter still); but her rough forefinger, which I once associated with a pocket nutmeg-grater, is just the same, and when I see my least child catching at it as it totters from my aunt to her, I think of our little parlour at home, when I could scarcely walk.

(David Copperfield, by Charles Dickens)

Now a bag of remarkable clothespins, next, a wonderful nutmeg grater which fell to pieces at the first trial, a knife cleaner that spoiled all the knives, or a sweeper that picked the nap neatly off the carpet and left the dirt, labor-saving soap that took the skin off one's hands, infallible cements which stuck firmly to nothing but the fingers of the deluded buyer, and every kind of tinware, from a toy savings bank for odd pennies, to a wonderful boiler which would wash articles in its own steam with every prospect of exploding in the process.

(Little Women, by Louisa May Alcott)

I have an impression on my mind which I cannot distinguish from actual remembrance, of the touch of Peggotty's forefinger as she used to hold it out to me, and of its being roughened by needlework, like a pocket nutmeg-grater.

(David Copperfield, by Charles Dickens)