Pronunciations (2)
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/ɡɹeɪ/
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ɡɹeɪ
Adjective
Of a color between black and white, having neutral hue and intermediate brightness.
Usage- US usage
Dreary, gloomy, cloudy.
Usage- US usage
- Figurative
- sometimes
- Examples
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the era of gray, boring banality and stagnation
It's a pretty grey outlook for England if these are a sample of the mothers of the coming generation.
Of indistinct, disputed or uncertain quality or acceptability.
Usage- US usage
Gray-haired.
Usage- US usage
- Synonyms
- Examples
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I have already gone gray and lost my looks.
Old.
Usage- US usage
- Examples
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Two hours, whose mighty circle did embrace More time than might make grey the infant world, Rolled thus, a weary and tumultuous space: […]
More examples (1)
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.
Usage- US usage
- Examples
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the gray dollar
More examples (1)
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.
Verb
To turn gray.
Usage- US usage
- ergative
- Examples
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My hair is beginning to gray.
To turn progressively older, alluding to graying of hair through aging (used in context of the population of a geographic region)
Usage- US usage
- Slang
- Examples
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the graying of America
It’s not what advocates of retrofitting the suburbs may have had in mind, but it’s a logical outcome of the graying of America, and of suburbia in particular.
To give a soft effect to (a photograph) by covering the negative while printing with a ground-glass plate.
Usage- US usage
- Transitive
Noun
An achromatic colour between black and white.
Usage- US usage
A gray dye or pigment.
Usage- US usage
A pen, pencil, crayon, etc., made of gray pigment.
Usage- US usage
An animal or thing of grey colour, such as a horse, badger, or salmon.
Usage- US usage
A gray wolf
Usage- US usage
- Examples
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Caywood holds the rifle which time after time brought down a raging, snarling prairie gray.
A gray whale, Eschrichtius robustus.
Usage- US usage
- Examples
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Log-shaped barnacles become embedded in the hide of the gray.
Synonym of grey alien.
Usage- US usage
A penny with a tail on both sides, used for cheating.
Usage- US usage
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.
Usage- US usage
Adjective
of an achromatic color of any lightness intermediate between the extremes of white and black
- Examples
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the little grey cells
gray flannel suit
More examples (1)
a man with greyish hair
showing characteristics of age, especially having grey or white hair
- Examples
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nodded his hoary head
used to signify the Confederate forces in the American Civil War (who wore grey uniforms)
- Synonyms
- Examples
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a stalwart grey figure
intermediate in character or position
- Synonyms
- Examples
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a grey area between clearly legal and strictly illegal
Noun
a neutral achromatic color midway between white and black
- Broader terms
clothing that is a grey color
- Synonyms
- Examples
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he was dressed in grey
any organization or party whose uniforms or badges are grey
- Synonyms
- Broader terms
- Examples
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the Confederate army was a vast grey
horse of a light gray or whitish color
- Synonyms
- Broader terms
the SI unit of energy absorbed from ionizing radiation; equal to the absorption of one joule of radiation energy by one kilogram of matter; one gray equals 100 rad
- Synonyms
- Broader terms
Verb
make grey
- Synonyms
- Examples
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The painter decided to grey the sky
turn grey
- Synonyms
- Examples
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Her hair began to grey