Gray Meaning

/ɡɹeɪ/
A1

Definition, CEFR level A1, pronunciation, examples, and quiz.

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adjOf a colour between black and white, having neutral hue and intermediate brightness.

adjOf a color between black and white, having neutral hue and intermediate brightness.

It's very gray outside.
Some English words have two spellings - "gray" and "grey", for example.
That is to say, he was old and gray and tired.
Synonyms:
Antonyms:
CEFR Practice Quiz
The smoke from the fire turned the sky a sickly ____ color.
CEFR Practice Quiz (Alternate)
The sky was a dull and gloomy ____ as the heavy rain clouds gathered just before the big thunderstorm.

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”).

"the era of gray, boring banality and stagnation" — 1980, 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, Max Carrados Mysteries:
"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, page 206:
"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:
"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:

Explore More A1 Vocabulary Words

CEFR Practice Quiz
The smoke from the fire turned the sky a sickly ____ color.
CEFR Practice Quiz (Alternate)
The sky was a dull and gloomy ____ as the heavy rain clouds gathered just before the big thunderstorm.

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