gray
/ɡɹeɪ/ adjective, verb, noun, proper noun
Forms grayer grayest grays graying grayed grey
- adjective Of a color between black and white, having neutral hue and intermediate brightness.
- adjective (sometimes figurative) Dreary, gloomy, cloudy.
- adjective Of indistinct, disputed or uncertain quality or acceptability.
- adjective Gray-haired. “I have already gone gray and lost my looks.”
- adjective Old.
- adjective Relating to older people. “the gray dollar”
- verb (ergative) To turn gray. “My hair is beginning to gray.”
- verb (demography, slang) To turn progressively older, alluding to graying of hair through aging (used in context of the population of a geographic region) “the graying of America”
- verb (transitive, photography) To give a soft effect to (a photograph) by covering the negative while printing with a ground-glass plate.
- noun An achromatic colour between black and white.
- noun A gray dye or pigment.
- noun A pen, pencil, crayon, etc., made of gray pigment.
- noun An animal or thing of grey colour, such as a horse, badger, or salmon.
- noun A gray wolf
- noun A gray whale, Eschrichtius robustus.
- noun (chiefly US, ufology) Synonym of grey alien.
- noun (US, two-up) A penny with a tail on both sides, used for cheating.
- noun In the International System of Units, the derived unit of absorbed dose of radiation (radiation absorbed by a patient); one joule of energy absorbed per kilogram of the patient's mass.
- proper noun A surname transferred from the nickname; originally a nickname for someone with a gray beard or hair.
- proper noun A male given name.
Synonyms
grayish grizzly gray / grey grayey / greyey grayish / greyish griseous grisescent hoary bleak sombre cheerless comfortless dark morose depressing desolate dire disconsolate dismal doleful grayness grey greyness Gy Louis Harold Gray Thomas Gray Robert Gray Asa Gray greyish grey-haired
Etymology
From Middle English gray, from Old English grǣġ (West Saxon). The spelling gray reflects the West Saxon vowel development, whereas the variant grey stems from the Anglian form grēġ (through Middle English grey). Further derived from Proto-West Germanic *grāu, from Proto-Germanic *grēwaz (“grey”), from Proto-Indo-European *ǵʰreh₁- (“to green, to grow”).
Cognate with West Frisian grau (“grey”), Dutch grauw (“grey”), German Low German grau, graag (“grey”), German grau (“grey”), Swedish grå (“grey”), Icelandic grár (“grey”), Latin rāvus (“tawny, grey”), Old Church Slavonic зьрѭ (zĭrjǫ, “to see, to glance”), archaic Russian зреть (zretʹ, “to watch, to look at”), Lithuanian žeriù (“to shine”).
Named after English physicist Louis Harold Gray (1905–1965).
* As an English, Irish, Scottish, and Norman surname, from the placename Graye-sur-Mer in Calvados, from Late Latin Graecus (“Greek”).
* Also as an English surname, from the adjective gray. Compare the Irish calque McGreevy.
* As a French surname, from Gray, Haute-Saône in France, from the personal name Gradus, a Gallo-Roman/Celtic pronunciation of Gratus, from the name Gratius.
Webster’s 1913
- adjective White mixed with black, as the color of pepper and salt, or of ashes, or of hair whitened by age; sometimes, a dark mixed color; as, the soft gray eye of a dove.
- adjective Gray-haired; gray-headed; of a gray color; hoary.
- noun A gray color; any mixture of white and black; also, a neutral or whitish tint.
- noun An animal or thing of gray color, as a horse, a badger, or a kind of salmon.
Etymology [OE. gray, grey, AS. grg, grg; akin to D. graauw OHG. gro, G. grau, Dan. graa, Dw. gr, Icel. grdr.]
Sources: Wiktionary · WordNet 3.0 · Webster’s 1913 — from the Wiktionary entry “gray”, CC BY-SA 4.0. Details