grill

The word “grill” means a rack of metal bars used for cooking food over direct heat. In plain terms, either the metal cooking rack itself, cooking on one, or (informally) questioning someone hard.

“Grill” is pronounced grihl (/ɡɹɪl/ in IPA).

Here is “grill” used in a sentence: “We fired up the grill for burgers on Saturday afternoon.”

Depending on how it is used, “grill” can be a noun and a verb.

The word “grill” dates back to around 1600 and comes from Latin. Borrowed in the 1600s from French gril, tracing back to Latin craticula, a small version of cratis meaning "wickerwork" — the same root that gives us "griddle" and "hurdle.".

“Grill” is a fairly common word in modern English, usually learned at around the B1 level.

“Grill” has 3 distinct senses listed in this dictionary. The most common is: a rack of metal bars used for cooking food over direct heat.

A grill is the equipment itself, a rack of metal bars used to cook food over direct heat, while "barbecue" often refers to the cooking event or a style of slow, indirect cooking with smoke. In everyday speech the two words overlap heavily, especially in American English where "grill" and "barbecue" (or "BBQ") are often used interchangeably for the same outdoor cooking device.

Grill shifts to this figurative sense when the object is a person rather than food, as in "the police grilled the suspect for hours." It describes questioning someone intensively and aggressively, drawing on the idea of subjecting them to sustained pressure or heat.

There is a key difference: in British English, "the grill" often refers to the overhead broiler element inside an oven, while in American English "the grill" typically means an outdoor barbecue-style cooking device. Both dialects share the verb sense of grilling food over direct heat.