gray

Meanings

1. 1
   adj

   Of a colour between black and white, like a cloudy sky.

   He wore a plain gray suit to work.

2. 2
   adj

   Dull, gloomy, or cloudy.

   It was a cold, gray morning in November.

3. 3
   adj

   Having gray or white hair, usually from age.

   His hair had gone gray over the years.

4. 4
   verb

   To become gray, especially of hair.

   My hair is beginning to gray.

Appears in

Simplified etymology

Grey is inherited from Old English. Since the Middle Ages it has described an overcast sky, and by the early 18th century that association had produced the figurative sense “dismal or sad”; its later use for ambiguity likewise developed from the idea of something lying between black and white.

From Middle English gray, from Old English grǣġ, grǣw (“grey”), 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”).

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External links

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• Cambridge Dictionary
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