gray
From Wiktionary, the free dictionary
See also: Gray
Alternative forms
- grey (used in the UK)
Etymology 1
From Middle English gray, from Old English grǣġ, from Proto-West Germanic *grāu, from Proto-Germanic *grēwaz, from Proto-Indo-European *ǵʰreh₁- (“to green, to grow”).
See also Dutch grauw, German grau, Old Norse grár); also Latin rāvus (“grey”), Old Church Slavonic зьрѭ (zĭrjǫ, “to see, to glance”), Russian зреть (zretʹ, “to watch, to look at”) (archaic), Lithuanian žeriù (“to shine”).
Pronunciation
Adjective
gray (comparative grayer or more gray, superlative grayest or most gray)
- Of a colour between black and white.
- Dreary, gloomy.
- 1980, Daniel C. Gerould, Stanisław I. Witkiewicz, The Beelzebub Sonata: Plays, Essays, Documents:
- the era of gray, boring banality and stagnation
- Of an indistinct, disputed or uncertain quality.
- Gray-haired.
- Old.
- 1817 December, Percy Bysshe Shelley, “The Revolt of Islam. […]”, in [Mary] Shelley, editor, The Poetical Works of Percy Bysshe Shelley. […], volume I, London: Edward Moxon […], published 1839, →OCLC, page 206:
- Two hours, whose mighty circle did embrace
More time than might make grey the infant world,
Rolled thus, a weary and tumultuous space: […]
- 2004, Betty Berzon, Permanent Partners: Building Gay & Lesbian Relationships That Last, page 20:
- In a subculture that idealizes youth, being gay and gray does not exactly make one a hot ticket. Older gays and lesbians often relegate themselves to separate and unequal meeting places.
- Relating to older people.
- the gray dollar ― the purchasing power of the elderly
- February 8, 1800, Fisher Ames, Eulogy on Washington
- Gray experience listened to his counsels with respect, and, at a time when youth is almost privileged to be rash, Virginia committed the safety of her frontier, and ultimately the safety of America, not merely to his valor,—for that would be scarcely praise,—but to his prudence.
Usage notes
Derived terms
- all cats are gray at night
- all cats are gray in the dark
- ash-gray
- ash gray
- ash-gray leaf bug
- back gray
- battleship gray
- battleship-gray
- blackish-gray antshrike
- blue-gray
- cadet gray
- cool gray
- dove gray
- eastern gray kangaroo
- eastern gray squirrel
- get gray hair from
- give gray hair to
- give someone gray hair
- gray-A
- gray ace
- gray alien
- gray amber
- gray ammonia
- gray area
- gray asexual
- gray asexuality
- graybeard
- gray-blue
- gray-box testing
- gray ceiling
- gray cells
- gray-collar
- gray collar
- gray commissure
- gray cuscus
- gray dogwood
- gray eminence
- gray ephedra
- grayey
- gray fox
- gray friar
- gray ghost
- gray gold
- gray ground squirrel
- gray-haired
- gray-hat
- gray hat
- gray-headed
- grayhound
- gray hydrogen
- gray iron
- gray jay
- gray langur
- gray literature
- gray magic
- gray magick
- gray man
- gray market
- gray marketeer
- gray matter
- gray mullet
- gray-necked bunting
- grayness
- gray night
- gray noise
- gray nomad
- gray out
- gray pine
- gray platelet syndrome
- gray power
- gray rape
- gray rocking
- gray rock method
- gray-scale
- gray scale
- gray seal
- gray-sexual
- graysexual
- graysexuality
- gray short-tailed opossum
- gray silver
- gray sole
- gray squirrel
- gray tape
- gray teal
- gray town
- gray treefrog
- gray tree frog
- gray triggerfish
- gray water
- gray whale
- gray wolf
- gray zorro
- groutfit
- gunmetal gray
- gunmetal-gray
- insular gray fox
- iron gray
- island gray fox
- long gray line
- military gray
- Patagonian gray fox
- Payne's gray
- periaqueductal gray
- slate gray
- South American gray fox
- western gray kangaroo
Translations
of a color somewhere between white and black, as the ash of an ember
|
dreary, gloomy
|
Verb
gray (third-person singular simple present grays, present participle graying, simple past and past participle grayed)
- To become gray.
- My hair is beginning to gray.
- To cause to become gray.
- (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
- (transitive, photography) To give a soft effect to (a photograph) by covering the negative while printing with a ground-glass plate.
Translations
to become gray
|
to cause to become gray
|
to turn progressively older
|
Noun
gray (plural grays)
- An achromatic colour between black and white.
- grey:
- An animal or thing of grey colour, such as a horse, badger, or salmon.
- A gray whale, Eschrichtius robustus.
- 1971 Mar, National Geographic, page 411:
- Log-shaped barnacles become embedded in the hide of the gray.
- (chiefly US, ufology) Synonym of grey alien
- (US, two-up) A penny with a tail on both sides, used for cheating.[2]
Translations
colour
|
extraterrestrial being
- The translations below need to be checked and inserted above into the appropriate translation tables. See instructions at Wiktionary:Entry layout § Translations.
See also
| Colors/Colours in English (layout · text) | ||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| red | orange | yellow | green | blue (incl. indigo; cyan, teal, turquoise) |
purple / violet | |
| pink (including magenta) |
brown | white | grey/gray | black | ||
References
- Jespersen, Otto (1909) A Modern English Grammar on Historical Principles (Sammlung germanischer Elementar- und Handbücher; 9), volumes I: Sounds and Spellings, London: George Allen & Unwin, published 1961, § 3.61, page 96.
- Sidney J. Baker, The Australian Language, second edition, 1966, chapter XI section 3, page 243
Etymology 2
Named after English physicist Louis Harold Gray (1905–1965).
Noun
gray (plural grays)
- 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. Symbol: Gy
- Coordinate term: rad
Derived terms
Translations
Further reading
gray (unit) on Wikipedia.Wikipedia
Anagrams
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