The Oxford Thesaurus An A-Z Dictionary of Synonyms - grating adj.

1) jarring, strident, raucous, harsh, discordant, dissonant, unharmonious, offensive, irritating, irksome, annoying, vexatious, galling: I find the noise of chalk squeaking on the blackboard very grating. 2) grinding, gritty, squeaky, jangling, screeching, creaking, shrill, piercing, squawking, croaking, rasping: The grating noise you hear is my fridge motor. --n. 3) grate, grid, reticle or reticule, grille, lattice, trellis, screen, network, reticulation: When a beam of light is directed through the fine grating, odd patterns are formed.