The Parse function returns the result of an expression, translated to the requested data type in SQL Server.

Parse Syntax

PARSE ( string_value AS data_type [ USING culture ] )

Parse Example

SELECT PARSE('08/17/2019' AS datetime2) AS Result;

SELECT PARSE('Saturday, 17 August 2019' AS date USING 'en-US') AS Result;
SELECT PARSE('Sat, 17 August 2019' AS date USING 'en-US') AS Result;

See also:
T-SQL Functions
Cast -> Convert -> Try_Cast -> Try_Convert -> Try_Parse