Word.ws English Dictionary

gray

/ɡɹeɪ/

gray adjective: of a color between black and white, having neutral hue and intermediate brightness.

gray: of a color between black and white, having neutral hue and intermediate brightness
Image: Mizunoryu, Badseed, Jacobolus, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons

Adjective

gray (comparative grayer or more gray, superlative grayest or most gray)

  1. (US) Of a color between black and white, having neutral hue and intermediate brightness.
    Synonyms:
    grayish, grizzly, gray / grey, grayey / greyey, grayish / greyish, griseous, grisescent, hoary
  2. (US, figuratively, sometimes) Dreary, gloomy, cloudy.
    • the era of gray, boring banality and stagnation1980, Daniel C. Gerould, Stanisław I. Witkiewicz, The Beelzebub Sonata: Plays, Essays, Documents
    • It's a pretty grey outlook for England if these are a sample of the mothers of the coming generation.1927, Ernest Bramah [pseudonym; Ernest Brammah Smith], Max Carrados Mysteries
  3. (US) Of indistinct, disputed or uncertain quality or acceptability.
  4. (US) Gray-haired.
    • I have already gone gray and lost my looks.
    Synonyms:
    grizzly, silver-haired, white-haired, gray / grey, gray-headed / grey-headed, grey-haired / gray-haired, grisly, grizzled, hoary, mouldy
  5. (US) Old.
    • Two hours, whose mighty circle did embrace
      More time than might make grey the infant world,
      Rolled thus, a weary and tumultuous space: […]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...
    • 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.2004, Betty Berzon, Permanent Partners: Building Gay & Lesbian Relationships That Last, page 20
  6. (US) Relating to older people.
    • the gray dollar
    • 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...

Verb

gray (third-person singular simple present grays, present participle graying, simple past and past participle grayed)

  1. (US, ergative) To turn gray.
    • My hair is beginning to gray.
  2. (US, 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
    • 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.2018 September 18, Amanda Kolson Hurley, “Fake Public Squares Are Coming to the Suburbs”, in The Atlantic
  3. (US, transitive) To give a soft effect to (a photograph) by covering the negative while printing with a ground-glass plate.

Noun (1)

gray (plural grays)

  1. (US) An achromatic colour between black and white.
  2. (US) A gray dye or pigment.
  3. (US) A pen, pencil, crayon, etc., made of gray pigment.
  4. (US) An animal or thing of grey colour, such as a horse, badger, or salmon.
  5. (US) A gray wolf
    • Caywood holds the rifle which time after time brought down a raging, snarling prairie gray.1939, Arthur Hawthorne Carhart, quoting Bill Caywood, “World Champion Wolfer”, in Outdoor Life, volume 84, number 3
  6. (US) A gray whale, Eschrichtius robustus.
    • Log-shaped barnacles become embedded in the hide of the gray.1971 Mar, National Geographic, page 411
  7. (US) Synonym of grey alien.
    Synonyms:
    grey alien
  8. (US, two-up) A penny with a tail on both sides, used for cheating.

Noun (2)

gray (plural grays)

  1. (US) 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 capitalized: Gray

Gray

  1. A surname transferred from the nickname; originally a nickname for someone with a gray beard or hair.
    • In Wyoming, a GOP state senator forwarded an FGA draft bill to Secretary of State Chuck Gray that would prohibit sending out unsolicited absentee ballot request forms.2024 March 17, Daniel Medina and Bob Ortega, “Emails show how a right-wing group steers GOP leaders on major policy issues”, in CNN
  2. A male given name.
  3. A city, the county seat of Jones County, Georgia.
  4. A minor city in Audubon County, Iowa.
  5. An unincorporated community in Knox County, Kentucky.
  6. A census-designated place in Terrebonne Parish, Louisiana.
  7. A town and census-designated place therein, in Cumberland County, Maine.
  8. A census-designated place in Washington County, Tennessee.
  9. A rural locality in north-east Tasmania, Australia.

gray meaning in Hindi, Tamil, Marathi and Urdu

gray in Hindi

of a color somewhere between white and black, like cinders
धूसर dhūsar

gray in Tamil

of a color somewhere between white and black, like cinders
சாம்பல் நிறம் cāmpal niṟam

gray in Marathi

of a color somewhere between white and black, like cinders
करडा karḍā, करडी karḍī, करडे karḍe, राखाडी rākhāḍī

gray in Urdu

of a color somewhere between white and black, like cinders
سُرْمَئی surmaī, دُھوسَر dhūsar, خاکِسْتَری xākistarī
More languagesFewer languages
gray in Bengali
ধূসর dhuśor
gray in Telugu
నెరిసిన nerisina, బూడిద būḍida
gray in Malayalam
ചാരം cāraṁ
gray in Kannada
ಬೂದು būdu
gray in Punjabi
ਧੌਲ਼ਾ dhauḷā
gray in Gujarati
નિસ્તેજ nistej, ગ્રે gre
gray in Odia
ଖଇରା khairā
gray in Sanskrit
पलित palita
gray in Sinhala
අළු aḷu
gray in Assamese
ধোঁৱা ৰং dhü̃a roṅ, ধোঁৱা বৰণীয়া dhü̃a boronia, ধোঁৱাবৰণীয়া dhü̃aboronia
gray in Nepali
फुस्रो phusro, कैलो kailo
gray in Pashto
خړ xëṛ, خړپړ ḵaṛ paṛ
gray in Tagalog
abuhin, kulay-abo, abo
gray in Arabic
رَمَادِيّ ramādiyy, أَشْيَب ʔašyab, أَشْهَب ʔašhab, رَصَاصِيّ raṣāṣiyy
gray in Malay
abu, kelabu, kelabu arang, gray
gray in Indonesian
abu-abu, gray
gray in Persian
خاکِستَری xâkestari
gray in Thai
เทา tao, สีเทา sǐi-tao, เกรย์ gree
gray in Vietnamese
hoa râm, buồn, buồn bã, rầu
gray in Myanmar
မီးခိုးရောင် mi:hkui:raung

Examples of gray in a sentence

  • The designer chose an achromatic color scheme of black, white, and gray.
  • Do you want the green gray tape or the red gray tape?
  • The walls were painted a flat gray.

All 40 example sentences with gray

Synonyms of gray

30 more synonymsFewer synonyms

All synonyms of gray

Forms of gray

Adjective
comparativegrayer
comparativemore gray
superlativegrayest
superlativemost gray
alternative formgrey
Verb
third-person singular presentgrays
present participlegraying
past participlegrayed
pastgrayed
Noun
pluralgrays
Proper noun
alternative formGrey

Plural of gray: grays

Origin of gray

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.

Words formed from gray

Phrases with gray

125 more phrasesFewer phrases

Words that rhyme with gray

48 more rhymesFewer rhymes

Questions about gray

What does gray mean?
Gray means of a color between black and white, having neutral hue and intermediate brightness.
What is gray in Hindi?
Gray in Hindi is धूसर (dhūsar). See Gray meaning in Hindi.
What part of speech is gray?
Gray can be an adjective, a verb, a noun or a proper noun.
How do you pronounce gray?
Gray is pronounced /ɡɹeɪ/.

Words near gray in the dictionary

  1. grawl
  2. grawlix
  3. grawlixes
  4. grawls
  5. grax
  6. gray
  7. gray ace
  8. gray alien
  9. gray aliens
  10. gray amber
  11. gray ammonia

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: gray (page history and authors); Gray (page history and authors); ਧੌਲ਼ਾ (Punjabi) (page history and authors); ଖଇରା (Odia) (page history and authors); ধোঁৱা বৰণীয়া (Assamese) (page history and authors). Text available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 license. Word.ws reformatted the entry and added links. Wiktionary data of 2026-09-02.

Last updated:

Pronunciation audio from Wikimedia Commons, each file under its own free license: en-us-gray.ogg, En-uk-grey.ogg, LL-Q1860 (eng)-PerfectSoundWhatever-grey.wav.

Cite this entry: “gray.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/gray. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.