Mince vs Grate - What's the difference?
mince | grate |
(uncountable) Finely chopped meat.
(uncountable) Finely chopped mixed fruit used in Christmas pies; mincemeat.
(countable) An affected (often dainty or short and precise) gait.
* Truman Capote, Children on their Birthdays : (rfdate)
* John Fowles: (rfdate):
* 2010 , Tom Zoellner, Uranium: War, Energy, and the Rock That Shaped the World :
(countable) An affected manner, especially of speaking; an affectation.
* George Bernard Shaw: (rfdate)
* 1928 , R. M. Pope, in The Education Outlook , volume 80, page 285:
* 2008 , Opie Read, The Colossus , page 95:
To make less; make small.
To lessen; diminish; to diminish in speaking; speak of lightly or slightingly; minimise.
(rare) To effect mincingly.
(cooking) To cut into very small pieces; to chop fine.
To suppress or weaken the force of; to extenuate; to palliate; to tell by degrees, instead of directly and frankly; to clip, as words or expressions; to utter half and keep back half of.
* Dryden
To affect; to pronounce affectedly or with an accent.
* 1869 , Alexander J. Ellis, On Early English Pronunciation, with special reference to Shakespeare and Chaucer , part 1, page 194:
* 1905 , George Henderson, The Gaelic Dialects, IV'', in the ''Zeitschrift für celtische Philologie , published by Kuno Meyer and L. Chr. Stern, volume 5, page 98:
* 1915 , Willa Cather, The Song of the Lark :
To walk with short steps; to walk in a prim, affected manner.
* The daughters of Zion are haughty, and walk with stretched forth necks and wanton eyes, mincing as they go. -- III. 16.
* I'll turn two mincing steps into a manly stride. —
*
To act or talk with affected nicety; to affect delicacy in manner.
(archaic) To diminish the force of.
A horizontal metal grille through which water, ash, or small objects can fall, while larger objects cannot.
* Shakespeare
A frame or bed, or kind of basket, of iron bars, for holding fuel while burning.
To furnish with grates; to protect with a grating or crossbars.
(cooking) To shred things, usually foodstuffs, by rubbing across a grater.
To rub against, making a (usually unpleasant) squeaking sound.
* 1856 : (Gustave Flaubert), (Madame Bovary), Part 3 Chapter X, translated by Eleanor Marx-Aveling
* , chapter=7
, title= (by extension) To ; to irritate or annoy.
(by extension, transitive, obsolete) To annoy.
* Shakespeare
In transitive terms the difference between mince and grate
is that mince is to affect; to pronounce affectedly or with an accent while grate is to furnish with grates; to protect with a grating or crossbars.In transitive cooking terms the difference between mince and grate
is that mince is to cut into very small pieces; to chop fine while grate is to shred things, usually foodstuffs, by rubbing across a grater.In intransitive terms the difference between mince and grate
is that mince is to act or talk with affected nicety; to affect delicacy in manner while grate is to rub against, making a (usually unpleasant) squeaking sound.As an adjective grate is
serving to gratify; agreeable.mince
English
Alternative forms
* (l)Noun
- Mince tastes really good fried in a pan with some chopped onion and tomato.
- During Christmas time my dad loves to eat mince pies.
- A wiry little girl in a starched, lemon-colored party dress, she sassed along with a grownup mince , one hand on her hip, the other supporting a spinsterish umbrella.
- She was just the same; she had a light way of walking and she always wore flat heels so she didn't have that mince like most girls. She didn't think at all about the men when she moved. Like a bird.
- His skin was china pale, he walked with a slight mince , and his silver mustache was always trimmed sharp; it was his custom to send a bouquet of pink carnations to the wives of men with whom he dined.
- A very moderate degree of accomplishment in this direction would make an end of stage smart speech, which, like the got-up Oxford mince and drawl of a foolish curate, is the mark of a snob.
- And, further, who has not heard what someone has christened the "Oxford" mince , where every consonant is mispronounced and every vowel gets a wrong value?
- [...] a smiling man, portly and impressive, coming toward them with a dignified mince in his walk.
Quotations
* 1849 , Herman Melville, Mardi, and a Voyage Thither : *: Not, — let me hurry to say, — that I put hand in tar bucket with a squeamish air, or ascended the rigging with a Chesterfieldian mince .Verb
(minc)- Butchers often use machines to mince meat.
- I know no ways to mince it in love, but directly to say — "I love you." —
- To mince one's words
- a minced oath
- Siren, now mince the sin, / And mollify damnation with a phrase.
- In some districts of England ll'' is sounded like ''w'', thus ''bowd'' (booud) for BOLD, ''bw'' (buu) for BULL, ''caw (kau) for CALL. But this pronunciation is merely a provincialism, and not to be imitated unless you wish to mince like these blunderers.
- One may hear some speakers in Oxford mince brother'' into ''brover'' (brëvë); ''Bath'' into ''Baf''; ''both'' into ''bof .
- "The preacher said it was sympathetic," she minced the word, remembering Mr. Larsen's manner.
- At the last moment Mollie, the foolish, pretty white mare who drew Mr. Jones's trap, came mincing daintily in, chewing at a lump of sugar.
- I love going to gay bars and seeing drag queens mince around on stage.
Usage notes
Current usage in the sense of "weaken the force of" is limited to the phrase "mince words"; e.g., "I won't mince words with you".Derived terms
* mincemeat * mince pie * mince words * minsitiveReferences
* ----grate
English
Etymology 1
(lena) grata, from (etyl) word for a hurdle; or (etyl) grata, of the same origin.Noun
(en noun)- The grate stopped the sheep from escaping from their field.
- a secret grate of iron bars
Synonyms
* grilleVerb
- to grate a window
Etymology 2
From (etyl)Etymology] of kradse in [[:w:da:ODS, ODS]and Danish kratte.
Verb
- The gate suddenly grated . It was Lestiboudois; he came to fetch his spade, that he had forgotten. He recognised Justin climbing over the wall, and at last knew who was the culprit who stole his potatoes.
The Mirror and the Lamp, passage=The turmoil went on—no rest, no peace. […] It was nearly eleven o'clock now, and he strolled out again. In the little fair created by the costers' barrows the evening only seemed beginning; and the naphtha flares made one's eyes ache, the men's voices grated harshly, and the girls' faces saddened one.}}
- News, my good lord Rome grates me.