Rasp is a harsh, rough, grating sound, like fingernails scraping down a chalkboard or a heavy door dragging across concrete. When someone speaks in a rasp, their voice sounds scratchy and strained, maybe from shouting too much at a game or recovering from a bad cold. You might hear the rasp of sandpaper against wood, or the rasp of a metal file shaping a piece of metal.

The word can also be a verb: to rasp means to make that harsh sound, or to scrape something with a rough surface. A carpenter might rasp the edges of a wooden board to smooth them down.

A rasp is also a tool: a metal file with very rough teeth, used for shaping wood or metal. It looks like a flat or curved bar covered with sharp ridges, and it removes material by scraping rather than cutting. When you use a rasp on wood, you can hear and feel that characteristic rough, grating action that gives the tool its name.