Commonly Confused Words Grate and Great

The words grate and great are homophones: they sound the same but have different meanings. Definitions As a noun, grate means a fireplace or a framework of crossed bars. As a verb, grate means to grind, scrape, or irritate. The adjective great means much more than average or ordinary in size, extent, volume, value, or importance. Examples The chair was deep, and dry logs  crackled in the grate, contrasting pleasantly with the patter of rain against the window.(Sylvia Townsend Warner, Winter in the Air and Other Stories, 1955)Harveys laughter made Aunt Karen grate her teeth.Anything is possible on a train: a great meal, a binge, a visit from card players, an intrigue, a good nights sleep, and strangers monologues framed like Russian short stories.(Paul Theroux,  The Great Railway Bazaar, 1975)I love my father, but its  a complicated love. He  can be great, really great, and then hes suddenly a storm slowly building, a storm that finally tosses lawn furniture  and garbage cans, knocks trees down onto  roofs.(Deb Caletti, The Story of Us. Simon Pulse, 2012)Onto the high plains sifted  the fine snow, delicately clouding the air, a rare dust, beautiful, he thought, silk gauze, but there was muscle in the wind rocking the heavy car, a great pulsing artery of the jet stream swooping down from the sky to touch t he earth.(Annie Proulx, The Half-Skinned Steer. The Atlantic Monthly, 1998)I toasted the grated cheese besides the great grate on the great fire that was in the great hall at my great-grandfathers mansion.(J. Jonathan Gabay, Gabays Copywriters Compendium: The Definitive Professional Writers Guide. Butterworth-Heinemann, 2007) Idiom Alerts The expression to grate on (someone) or to grate on (someones) nerves means to annoy or bother a person.ReiIlys genuine sympathy and nice-guy attitude were starting to  grate on my  nerves. People just werent that kind.(Kelly Meding,  Another Kind of Dead. Bantam, 2011)The expression great minds think alike (or simply, great minds) means that one person agrees with another on some issue.Gabe laughed. . . . Maybe we can follow him and find out what hes up to.At this, Abby couldnt help but smile. I was actually thinking the same thing.Gabe smiled at her, so openly that her stomach flipped. Why did he have to keep doing that? Great minds, he said. Ill see you at practice. Well figure out our plan of attack then.(Cassandra Dunn,  The Art of Adapting. Thorndike, 2014) Practice (a) Moby Dick, the _____ white whale, was a symbol of the worlds evils to Captain Ahab.(b) Carefully she tore the letter into narrow strips and touched a lighted match to them in the coal _____.(Katherine Anne Porter, Theft. The Gyroscope, 1930)(c) Harolds first _____ mistake was attempting to cheat on the exam. Answers to Practice Exercises Glossary of Usage: Index of Commonly Confused Words 200 Homonyms, Homophones, and Homographs Answers to Practice Exercises: Grate and Great (a) Moby Dick, the great white whale, was a symbol of the worlds evils to Captain Ahab.(b) Carefully she tore the letter into narrow strips and touched a lighted match to them in the coal grate.(Katherine Anne Porter, Theft.  The Gyroscope, 1930)(c) Harolds first great mistake was attempting to cheat on the exam.