Word.ws English Dictionary

grayback

grayback is the alternative spelling of greyback.

Meaning of greyback

Noun

greyback (countable and uncountable, plural greybacks)

  1. (US, colloquial, historical) A Confederate soldier during the US Civil War (because of the grey uniforms).
    • ...to resist the farther advance of the greybacks.1871, Mary Stephens Robinson, A household story of the American conflict
    Synonyms:
    graycoat, greycoat
    Antonyms:
    bluecoat, bluebelly
  2. (US, colloquial, historical) A Confederate States dollar during the US Civil War.
  3. (dated) A louse.
    • It is alleged by the defendant that there were scabs and greybacks in it, and that it did not come up to the quality of No. 1 slate as contracted for.1886, Central Reporter: Cases, Courts of Last Resort
  4. (regional) Any of various grey birds.
  5. A kind of paperboard with a smooth white surface on one side and a grey surface on the other side.
  6. (US, historical) A Confederate States dollar.

Forms of grayback

pluralgraybacks

Origin of grayback

From gray + back.

Questions about grayback

What is grayback the alternative spelling of?
Grayback is the alternative spelling of greyback.

Words near grayback in the dictionary

  1. Grayan
  2. grayanotoxane
  3. grayanotoxanes
  4. grayanotoxin
  5. grayanotoxins
  6. grayback
  7. graybacks
  8. graybar hotel
  9. graybar motel
  10. Graybeal
  11. Graybeals

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: grayback (page history and authors); greyback (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.

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