Raspen

Part of speech: verb

Definitions

1. A coarse file used for shaping or smoothing wood and metal surfaces
2. A tool with rough surfaces utilized for scraping or leveling materials, particularly in woodworking or metalworking
3. An instrument featuring a roughened texture designed to remove material or refine surfaces in various crafts

Etymology: Before it named a tool, the root of "raspen" seems to have meant gathering. Old High German "raspōn" is usually glossed as "to gather up," and it is the likely ancestor of the Germanic family that also produced Dutch "raspen" and German "raspeln," both meaning to scrape or grate. The link between gathering and scraping is not fully documented, but scraping up shavings or crumbs is a plausible bridge. Old French took the scraping sense as "rasper," and English borrowed it as a verb in the Middle English period. The tool sense came later, from the action. A coarse file with raised, sharp teeth was named for what it does to a surface: it rasps. English speakers used the verb for the harsh grating action itself, which is why a rasping voice sounds like a file on wood.

Synonyms: scratch, scrape, scruff

Antonyms: smooth, polish