How to Use rasp in a Sentence

rasp

1 of 2 verb
  • The metal boxes rasped as they were dragged across the floor.
  • For a short time, the line rasped, smoking, through the chocks.
    — Literary Hub, 12 Aug. 2025
  • The voice was faint and rasping, like the sound of pebbles raked by a wave.
    — Maggie O’Farrell, Literary Hub, 2 June 2026
  • The metal edge shaves the skin off her arm with a rasping sound like a meat slicer.
    — Josephine Livingstone, New Republic, 4 Oct. 2017
  • Her dynamism as a box-to-box player — including a rasping long-range shot — has been missed.
    — Jonathan Tannenwald, Philly.com, 29 May 2018
  • The short list of ingredients can be prepped even faster with the help of a Microplane zester (aka rasp).
    — Bhg Test Kitchen, Better Homes & Gardens, 6 Mar. 2023
  • Thrips have rasping, sucking mouthparts.
    — Arricca Elin Sansone, Southern Living, 3 Mar. 2026
  • Thrips have rasping, sucking mouthparts.
    — Arricca Elin Sansone, Southern Living, 5 Aug. 2025
  • The creatures attach to fish with a suction cup mouth, rasp a hole though the fish’s scales and skin, and feed on blood and body fluids.
    — Detroit Free Press Staff, Detroit Free Press, 22 May 2018
  • The Argentina legend stepped up and rasped the ball into the top corner.
    — Joseph O'Sullivan, Forbes.com, 19 June 2025
  • The noise of desperate, rasping inhalation echoes throughout the evening.
    — Ben Brantley, New York Times, 11 June 2017
  • The full-on, ranting and raging, roaring and rasping Murray has been tempered.
    — Tim Ellis, Forbes, 28 Mar. 2024
  • The beach-dwelling crustacean can create loud rasping sounds, not only with its claws, but also with its guts, new research reveals.
    — David Shultz, Science | AAAS, 10 Sep. 2019
  • Sometimes a bleaty quality crept in, sometimes a dry high note was rasped or snarled, sometimes an ornament emerged with the bite of a buzz saw.
    — Anne Midgette, Washington Post, 20 Oct. 2019
  • Soon the rasping sounds of a saw joined those of falling water, and local settlers carried away splintery but fresh-smelling planks of oak, elm and walnut.
    — Darryl Levings, kansascity, 18 July 2017
  • Some patients were breathing only in labored rasps; others lay motionless and silent, seemingly comatose.
    — Glenn Garvin, miamiherald, 22 Sep. 2017
  • The reply of my friend and hunting companion was one of those quaint, rasping epithets which only a cowman can manage when everything has gone wrong.
    — Frank C. Hibben, Outdoor Life, 27 Feb. 2025
  • When the beetle takes flight, the woman, who is busy unpacking, doesn’t realize for a moment that there’s something out of place about that rasping ruckus, that foreign hum.
    — María Ospina, The Dial, 31 Mar. 2026
  • Sea lampreys are parasites, feeding by attaching to fish with their suction mouth, using their tongue to rasp a hole through the fish's skin, and consuming the blood and juices that flow out.
    — Keith Matheny, Freep.com, 15 Dec. 2025
  • Negron, in particular, completely throws himself into it, rasping and howling and wailing out ad-libs.
    — Paul Grein, Billboard, 3 Sep. 2019
  • Jack Stephens drew a fine save from Lloris in the 68th minute - rasping a right-footed effort towards the far post that was tipped wide by the goalkeeper.
    — SI.com, 26 Dec. 2017
  • The 23-year-old nearly doubled his side's advantage a minute before the break with a rasping shot from 25 yards which just drifted wide of Oblak's right-hand post.
    — SI.com, 19 Apr. 2018
  • Thiaw paced, head bowed, arms crossed, as his Senegal players celebrated Gueye’s second rasping shot of the afternoon.
    — Amy Lawrence, New York Times, 26 June 2026
  • In the 90th minute, with a rasping shot across goal, Van de Sanden forced a fine save from Lindahl but it was left to Groenen create history.
    — Aimee Lewis, CNN, 3 July 2019
  • And for those with extra-gnarly calluses, this Tweezerman rasp that writer Kase Wickman uses to shave off the thick husks of skin around the balls of her feet is also on sale.
    — The Editors, The Strategist, 26 June 2018
  • And then Elisabeth uses it, and her spine splits open, leaving her a rasping husk of flesh while an alternate self rises, in the dewy buff, to survey her taut flesh with a clinical eye in the mirror.
    — Alison Willmore, Vulture, 20 Sep. 2024
  • Substitute Nathan Dyer rasped a drive just over the bar as the hosts upped the ante again, and their pressure told as Jordan Ayew fired home with 20 minutes to go.
    — SI.com, 14 Apr. 2018
  • While studying the ghost crabs, researchers noticed that when they were involved in agonistic interactions, the crustaceans made the aggressive rasping noises even with their claws outstretched.
    — Amy Woodyatt and Allen Kim, CNN, 12 Sep. 2019
  • Festival co-founder Lee Reynolds is still awake and riding high after his midnight set, shouting and chanting at the picturesque cerulean sky with his hair disheveled, voice rasped, and squinting eyes and arms raised high.
    — Jordan Diaz, Billboard, 5 May 2017
  • While Mullan’s natural voice shares Shankly’s rasping quality, their inflexions are different.
    — Simon Hughes, The Athletic, 20 Mar. 2025

rasp

2 of 2 noun
  • Kidd is back to work, though with just a soft rasp of a voice.
    — Susan Slusser, SFChronicle.com, 31 Mar. 2020
  • The bits where her voice starts cracking and the rasp comes out?
    — Megan Buerger, Billboard, 17 May 2018
  • John is jealous that someone with such a rasp has so much range.
    — Maggie Fremont, EW.com, 22 Sep. 2021
  • Christine has a cool rasp that sets her apart from other singers.
    — Maggie Fremont, EW.com, 2 Mar. 2021
  • As Kitchens talked to the media, his voice was sometimes a rasp.
    — Terry Pluto, cleveland, 29 Dec. 2019
  • Wallen's voice is as much rock as country, arriving with a grunge rasp.
    — Jon Pareles New York Times, Star Tribune, 21 Jan. 2021
  • Throughout the day, Garland spoke in low tones, with a slight rasp to his voice.
    — Washington Post, 22 Feb. 2021
  • The only sound the dog could be said to produce was the low rasp of the chain against cement.
    — Han Kang, Harper's magazine, 10 Feb. 2019
  • Cara has a soothing, pretty voice while Jay is all power and rasp.
    — Maggie Fremont, EW.com, 18 Oct. 2022
  • His fizzy rasp certainly evokes the sound on the early albums.
    — Matt Wake | [email protected], al, 21 Oct. 2021
  • There's a lot of passion in this performance, and his rasp is used to full effect.
    — Maggie Fremont, EW.com, 24 May 2021
  • Bella is pure and crystal clear, while Katie has a cool rasp and an edge to her vocals.
    — Maggie Fremont, EW.com, 12 Oct. 2021
  • Not the way Rivers’ voice, usually worn down to a rasp by April, feels great.
    — Andrew Greif, Los Angeles Times, 8 Apr. 2020
  • With his tree-bark rasp, Gabe raps hard as hell and pulls little storytelling tricks out of his bag.
    — Alphonse Pierre, Pitchfork, 30 Jan. 2026
  • Kirbi, that rasp is so beautiful at the top of your register.
    — Jessica Lynch, Billboard, 21 Oct. 2025
  • The crosscut made a sudden rasp, and the vibration in the handle changed.
    — John Jeremiah Sullivan, The New Yorker, 23 Dec. 2019
  • Biden took his place and removed his mask and began to speak in a voice that was just above a whisper and with a bit of a rasp.
    — Washington Post, 22 Mar. 2021
  • East tones down his rasp here, favoring a smoother approach and a frequent falsetto.
    — Joseph Hudak, Rolling Stone, 7 Apr. 2021
  • The crowd was eating out of the palm of his hand, hanging on every word spit with that signature rasp.
    — Heather Bushman, IndyStar, 18 Aug. 2025
  • Where there was once hope, there is now the vocal equivalent of coarse sandpaper, a dull, flat rasp.
    — Edward Kiersh, SPIN, 11 Feb. 2023
  • Burgholzer met the three of us in a treatment room and spoke with a rasp—the only outward sign of his disease.
    — Charles Schmidt, Scientific American, 1 Nov. 2019
  • Of all the classic summer berries — straw, blue, goose, rasp — blackberries ripen latest.
    — Jessica Kiang, Variety, 7 June 2023
  • At low rpm there is a decent little rasp, but in the engine’s upper reaches the whole thing goes quiet.
    — Daniel Pund, Car and Driver, 16 June 2017
  • Thick, cold air would slow the tremor of vocal cords and the speed of sound itself, deepening your voice and giving it a rasp.
    — Popular Science, 26 Jan. 2020
  • The juice of the grapes is macerated with the skins, which provide a tinge of color and a mild rasp of tannin.
    — New York Times, 13 Jan. 2022
  • Even the barely audible rasp of the bow’s hair across a string can conjure the intimate shape of a last breath.
    — Michael Andor Brodeur, Washington Post, 5 Oct. 2022
  • Johnson, looking pale and speaking with a rasp in his voice, said in a video posted on Twitter.
    — Mark Landler, BostonGlobe.com, 27 Mar. 2020
  • Well, Chayce certainly has the rasp to pull off this Bryan Adams classic.
    — Maggie Fremont, EW.com, 19 Apr. 2021
  • At one point, Nelson strained to push his rasp high enough to meet Musgraves in harmony.
    — Chris Richards, Washington Post, 14 Nov. 2019
  • Now, as any horror-movie screenwriter will attest, was the moment to write in the rasp of a car failing to start.
    — David McAninch, New York Times, 15 July 2019

Some of these examples are programmatically compiled from various online sources to illustrate current usage of the word 'rasp.' Any opinions expressed in the examples do not represent those of Merriam-Webster or its editors. Send us feedback about these examples.

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