gray
Language: English
Part of speech: adj
Pronunciation: enpr: grā
ipa: /ɡɹeɪ/
rhymes: -eɪ
homophone: grey
homophone: (one pronunciation) greige
Forms: form: grayer
form: more gray
form: grayest
form: most gray
form: grey
Etymology: 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”).
Senses: synonyms: word: grayish
word: grizzly
word: gray
word: grayish
word: grey
word: greyish
word: grisescent
glosses: Of a colour between black and white, having neutral hue and intermediate brightness.
examples: text: the era of gray, boring banality and stagnation
ref: 1980, Daniel C. Gerould, Stanisław I. Witkiewicz, The Beelzebub Sonata: Plays, Essays, Documents:
synonyms: word: bleak
word: sombre
word: cheerless
word: comfortless
word: bleak
word: dark
word: depressing
word: desolate
word: dire
word: disconsolate
word: dismal
word: doleful
word: dolesome
word: drear
word: drearisome
word: dreary
word: dreich
word: forlorn
word: gayless
word: gray
word: gloomsome
word: gloomy
word: grim
word: joyless
word: lack-laughter
word: lugubrious
word: melancholy
word: mirthless
word: miserable
word: no joke
word: saturnine
word: solemn
word: somber
word: sombre
word: spiritless
word: sullen
word: sunless
word: uncheerful
word: uncheery
word: unhappy
word: unmerry
word: wintry
word: woeful
glosses: Dreary, gloomy, cloudy.
synonyms: word: fuzzy
word: wooly
word: ambiguous
word: equivocal
word: fuzzy
word: generic
word: gray
word: imperspicuous
word: imprecise
word: indeterminate
word: indefinite
word: indistinct
word: turbid
word: uncertain
word: unclear
word: undefined
word: undefinable
word: vague
word: woolly
glosses: Of indistinct, disputed or uncertain quality or acceptability.
synonyms: grizzly
silver-haired
white-haired
glosses: Gray-haired.
examples: text: Two hours, whose mighty circle did embrace
More time than might make grey the infant world,
Rolled thus, a weary and tumultuous space: […]
ref: 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, page 206:
text: 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.
ref: 2004, Betty Berzon, Permanent Partners: Building Gay & Lesbian Relationships That Last, page 20:
synonyms: word: cobwebbed
word: hoary
word: ancient
word: aged
word: age-old
word: antediluvian
word: auld
word: cobwebbed
word: cobwebby
word: decrepit
word: eld
word: eldern
word: gray
word: hoary
word: moss-grown
word: old
word: old as the hills
word: old as the Pyramids
word: olden
word: older than dirt
word: older than the hills
word: older than the Pyramids
word: venerable
word: wintry
glosses: Old.
examples: text: the gray dollar
translation: the purchasing power of the elderly
english: the purchasing power of the elderly
text: 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.
synonyms: word: elder
word: geriatric
word: elder
word: elderly
word: geriatric
raw_tags: in this metonymic sense
word: gerontologic
raw_tags: in this metonymic sense
word: gerontological
raw_tags: in this metonymic sense
word: long in the tooth
word: matured
word: of a certain age
word: old as Methuselah
word: on in years
word: over the hill
word: senior
word: superannuated
word: ivy-covered
word: preserved
word: wintry
glosses: Relating to older people.
Derived terms: all cats are gray at night
all cats are gray in the dark
ash-gray
ash gray
ash-gray leaf bug
back gray
battleship gray
battleship-gray
blackish-gray antshrike
blue-gray
cadet gray
cool gray
dove gray
eastern gray kangaroo
eastern gray squirrel
get gray hair from
give gray hair to
give someone gray hair
gray-A
gray ace
gray alien
gray amber
gray ammonia
gray area
gray asexual
gray asexuality
graybeard
gray-blue
grayboard
graybody
gray-box testing
gray catbird
gray ceiling
gray cells
gray-collar
gray collar
gray commissure
gray cuscus
gray divorce
gray dogwood
gray eminence
grayen
gray ephedra
grayey
gray fox
gray friar
gray ghost
gray gold
gray ground squirrel
gray-haired
gray hat
grayhead
gray-headed
gray hen
grayhound
gray hydrogen
gray iron
grayish
gray jay
gray langur
grayling
gray literature
grayly
gray magic
gray magick
gray man
graymap
gray market
gray marketeer
gray matter
gray mullet
graymuzzle
gray-necked bunting
grayness
gray night
gray noise
gray nomad
grayordinate
gray out
gray pine
gray platelet syndrome
gray power
gray rape
gray reef shark
gray rocking
gray rock method
grayromantic
gray-scale
grayscale
gray scale
grayschist
gray seal
gray-sexual
graysexual
graysexuality
gray short-tailed opossum
gray silver
gray sole
gray squirrel
graystone
gray tape
gray teal
gray town
gray tree frog
gray treefrog
gray triggerfish
grayware
graywater
gray water
gray whale
gray wolf
gray zorro
green-gray
groutfit
gunmetal gray
gunmetal-gray
insular gray fox
iron gray
island gray fox
long gray line
military gray
millennial gray
nongray
Patagonian gray fox
Payne's gray
pearl gray
periaqueductal gray
silver-gray
slate gray
South American gray fox
ungray
western gray kangaroo