grey
US spellinggray
- 1Of the neutral colour lying between black and white, in any shade from pale to dark, like ash or a rain cloud.
The town's grey stone houses look almost silver after rain.
Choose the greyest of the three tiles if you want the floor to hide dirt.
UsageUsually greyer and greyest. American English usually spells the word gray.
- 2The colour itself, named as a thing: the neutral shade without any tint that lies between black and white, as in a shade of grey or dressed in grey.
The designer chose a soft grey for the living room walls.
Slate blues and charcoal greys dominate this autumn's collection.
UsageOften in grey: dressed in grey. The plural greys means shades of the colour: charcoal greys.
- 3Not clearly defined, or of doubtful or disputed quality or acceptability.
Whether the payments broke the law is a grey area, even for the lawyers.
The line between borrowing an idea and copying it can be very grey.
UsageMost often in a grey area: a situation where distinctions, rules or boundaries are unclear.
- 4
- 5An animal or thing that is grey in colour, such as a grey horse, a badger, a grey whale or a grey squirrel.
The grey won the second race by two lengths.
The dealer had three greys for sale at the horse fair.
- 6To become grey in colour, or to cause something to become grey.
Many people's hair begins to grey in middle age.
Salt spray and sun soon grey new oak fence panels.
UsageMostly used of hair. People also say hair goes grey or turns grey.
Similarsilver
- 7Of a person or animal, old in years, or showing age by having hair that has turned grey or white.
A grey old man sat on the bench feeding the pigeons.
He was already grey at the temples by the time he turned thirty.
UsageUsually go grey or turn grey: he went grey in his fifties. Also grey at the temples.
Similargrizzled, silver-haired, white-haired, elderly
Oppositeyoung
Less common meanings
- 8Concerning or belonging to older people as a group.
Holiday companies have built whole cruise lines around the grey pound.
Both parties are courting the grey vote ahead of the election.
UsageMostly in set phrases about money and politics: the grey pound, the grey vote.
Note
The image is grey hair, as in the "grey-haired" meaning. The figurative habit is old: in his 1800 eulogy on Washington, Fisher Ames writes that grey experience listened to his counsels, meaning the wise heads of an older generation.
- 9Of a population, to grow steadily older as a whole, as if its hair were turning grey.
Planners expect the region to grey rapidly over the next twenty years.
The greying of Britain's coastal towns is putting pressure on local GP surgeries.
UsageMore often a noun phrase than a plain verb: the greying of a town or country.
Similarage
Note
Demographers' shorthand that turns greying hair into a picture of a whole population growing older. It describes the share of older residents rising, not any one person ageing, and it is as much at home in official reports as in journalism.
- 10Another name for a grey alien, one of the beings described in accounts of UFO encounters.
Her abduction story follows a familiar pattern: a bright light, missing time and a grey standing at the foot of the bed.
Believers argue about whether the greys come from another planet or another time.
Note
Ufology's clipped form of grey alien, used chiefly in American writing about sightings and abductions. Because a grey can just as easily be a grey horse, the setting has to make clear which is meant; in a racing report nobody thinks of visitors from space.
- 11A title in the Peerage of the United Kingdom, created in 1806, whose holder is styled Earl Grey.
- 12A soldier of the Royal Scots Greys, a former Scottish cavalry regiment of the British Army, known for riding grey horses.
- 13The territorial authority of Grey District on New Zealand's West Coast, successor to Grey County.
- 14A short name for Grey County, a county in Ontario, Canada, or a former county on New Zealand's West Coast.
- 15An informal short name for Grey College, one of the colleges of Durham University.
- 16A fake coin showing tails on both faces, used for cheating at two-up.
- 17To soften the look of a photographic print by laying a ground-glass plate over the negative during printing.
Showing meanings only.
Used only in American English, spelled gray: the SI unit of absorbed radiation.
Practice
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Origin
Middle English grey continues Old English grēġ (grǣġ in West Saxon), which comes from Proto-Germanic *grēwaz; related forms are Dutch grauw, German grau and Old Norse grár. The Germanic word probably goes back to a Proto-Indo-European root *ǵʰreh₁-, though scholars disagree on whether it meant "to grow" or "to glow". Latin rāvus ("grey") may be set beside it.