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- gray (often used in the US)
From Middle English grey, from Old English grǣġ, from Proto-Germanic *grēwaz (compare Dutch grauw, German grau, Old Norse grár), from Proto-Indo-European *ǵʰreh₁- (“to green, to grow”) (compare Latin rāvus (“grey”), Old Church Slavonic зьрѭ (zĭrjǫ, “to see, to glance”), Russian зреть (zretʹ, “to watch, to look at”) (archaic), Lithuanian žeriù (“to shine”)).
grey (comparative greyer or more grey, superlative greyest or most grey)
- British and Commonwealth standard spelling of gray.
1704, I[saac] N[ewton], “(please specify |book=1 to 3)”, in Opticks: Or, A Treatise of the Reflexions, Refractions, Inflexions and Colours of Light. […], London: […] Sam[uel] Smith, and Benj[amin] Walford, printers to the Royal Society, […], →OCLC:
These grey and dun colors may be also produced by mixing whites and blacks.
- (South Africa, slang) Synonym of coloured (pertaining to the mixed race of black and white).[1]
- all cats are grey at night
- all cats are grey by night
- all cats are grey in the dark
- ash-grey
- ash grey
- battleship-grey
- battleship grey
- blue-grey
- brain grey
- cadet grey
- code grey
- cool grey
- dove grey
- eastern grey kangaroo
- French grey
- get grey hair from
- give grey hair to
- give someone grey hair
- great grey owl
- great grey shrike
- grey alder
- grey alien
- grey amber
- grey ammonia
- grey area
- greyback
- grey-backed fiscal
- greybeard
- grey belt
- grey-blue
- greyboard
- greybody
- grey-box testing
- grey-capped greenfinch
- grey cells
- grey club-rush
- grey-collar
- grey corkwood
- grey crested tit
- grey crow
- grey crowned crane
- grey eminence
- greyen
- greyer
- greyest
- greyey
- grey folk
- grey francolin
- greyfriar
- grey friar
- grey ghost
- grey gold
- grey goo
- grey-haired
- grey-hat
- grey hat
- greyhead
- grey-headed
- grey-headed bunting
- grey-headed chickadee
- grey-headed woodpecker
- grey hen
- grey heron
- grey-hooded attila
- grey-hooded bunting
- greyhound
- grey hydrogen
- greyish
- greyishly
- grey jay
- grey junglefowl
- greylag
- grey-legged tinamou
- greyline
- greylist
- grey literature
- greyly
- grey magic
- grey magick
- grey market
- grey marketeer
- grey matter
- grey mullet
- grey-necked bunting
- grey-necked wood rail
- greyness
- grey night
- grey noddy
- grey noise
- grey nomad
- grey nurse
- grey nurse shark
- grey out
- grey ox
- grey partridge
- grey platelet syndrome
- grey plover
- grey pound
- grey power
- grey rape
- grey red-backed vole
- grey reef shark
- grey rhea
- grey rocking
- grey rock method
- grey-scale
- greyscale
- grey scale
- greyschist
- grey seal
- greystone
- grey-tailed tattler
- grey teal
- grey ternlet
- grey-throated rail
- grey tinamou
- grey tit
- Grey Tribe
- grey wagtail
- grey warbler
- greyware
- grey water
- greywater
- greywether
- grey whale
- grey-winged trumpeter
- grey wolf
- grey zorro
- gunmetal-grey
- gunmetal grey
- lesser grey shrike
- military grey
- Patagonian grey fox
- Payne's grey
- pearl grey
- pinko-grey
- silver-grey
- slate grey
- South American grey fox
- the fox may grow grey but never good
- the grey mare is the better horse
- ungrey
- western grey kangaroo
- wolf-grey
grey (third-person singular simple present greys, present participle greying, simple past and past participle greyed)
- British and Commonwealth standard spelling of gray.
1941, Emily Carr, chapter 18, in Klee Wyck[1]:
Now only a few hand-hewn cedar planks and roof beams remained, moss-grown and sagging—a few totem poles, greyed and split.
grey (plural greys)
- British and Commonwealth standard spelling of gray.
1810, Walter Scott, “(please specify the canto number or page)”, in The Lady of the Lake; […], Edinburgh: […] [James Ballantyne and Co.] for John Ballantyne and Co.; London: Longman, Hurst, Rees, and Orme, and William Miller, →OCLC, (please specify the stanza number):
Woe worth the chase, woe worth the day, / That costs thy life, my gallant grey.
1833, Sporting Magazine, volume 6, page 400:
Pioneer seemed now to have the game in his own hands; but the Captain, by taking two desperate leaps, cut off a corner, by which he regained the ground he had lost by the fall, and was up with the grey the remainder of the chase.
Colors/Colours in English (layout · text) | ||||||
---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
red | orange | yellow | green | blue (incl. indigo; cyan, teal, turquoise) |
purple / violet | |
pink (including magenta) |
brown | white | grey/gray | black |
- ^ 2001, Charlotte Spinks, A New Apartheid? Urban Spatiality, (Fear of) Crime, and Segregation; in Cape Town, South Africa, Destin Development Studies Institute, ISSN 1470-2320
From Old Norse grey, from Proto-Germanic *grawją, cognate with Faroese groyggj. Original meaning -meager dog (greyhound), whereas in English the semantic developed to simply a lean dog, this was transferred mostly from the dogs all together to mean a -poor little thing - a poor person. the semantic change to something poor has already taken place in the old language.
grey n (genitive singular greys, nominative plural grey)
- (archaic) bitch (female dog)
- wretch, pitiful person
Greyið mitt!
- You poor little thing!
- indefinite accusative singular of grey
- indefinite nominative plural of grey
- indefinite accusative plural of grey
Declension of grey | ||||
---|---|---|---|---|
n-s | singular | plural | ||
indefinite | definite | indefinite | definite | |
nominative | grey | greyið | grey | greyin |
accusative | grey | greyið | grey | greyin |
dative | greyi | greyinu | greyjum | greyjunum |
genitive | greys | greysins | greyja | greyjanna |
From Old English grǣġ, from Proto-West Germanic *grāu, from Proto-Germanic *grēwaz.
grey (plural and weak singular greye)
- grey, dull, drab (in color)
- glinting, glistening
- “grei, adj. & n..”, in MED Online, Ann Arbor, Mich.: University of Michigan, 2007, retrieved 2018-03-30.
grey
- “grei, adj. & n..”, in MED Online, Ann Arbor, Mich.: University of Michigan, 2007, retrieved 2018-03-30.
- “grei, n.(2).”, in MED Online, Ann Arbor, Mich.: University of Michigan, 2007, retrieved 2018-03-30.
- “grei, n.(1).”, in MED Online, Ann Arbor, Mich.: University of Michigan, 2007, retrieved 2018-03-30.
whit | grey, hor | blak |
red; cremesyn, gernet | citrine, aumbre; broun, tawne | yelow, dorry, gul; canevas |
grasgrene | grene | |
plunket; ewage | asure, livid | blewe, blo, pers |
violet; inde | rose, murrey; purpel, purpur | claret |
grey m (plural greys)
- Alternative form of gray (race of extraterrestrials)
Inherited from Old Spanish grey, from Latin gregem, from Proto-Indo-European *h₂ger- (“to assemble, gather together”).
grey f (plural greyes)
- (obsolete, poetic) flock, herd
- (religion) flock (people served by a pastor, priest, etc., also all believers in a church or religion)
- Synonyms: rebaño, feligresía, congregación, iglesia
1877, Benito Pérez Galdós, Gloria:
toda la grey díscola y ladina de aquellas verdes montañas
- the whole rebellious and cunning flock from those green mountains
- “grey”, in Diccionario de la lengua española, Vigésima tercera edición, Real Academia Española, 2014
- Joan Coromines, José A. Pascual (1983–1991) “grey”, in Diccionario crítico etimológico castellano e hispánico (in Spanish), Madrid: Gredos, page 208