grey

• POS: Adjective, Noun, Verb (usu participle)

CIDE DICTIONARY

grey, a. 

 See Gray (the correct orthography).  [1913 Webster]

OXFORD DICTIONARY

grey, adj., n., & v. (US gray)
--adj.
1 of a colour intermediate between black and white, as of ashes or lead.
2 a (of the weather etc.) dull, dismal; heavily overcast. b bleak, depressing; (of a person) depressed.
3 a (of hair) turning white with age etc. b (of a person) having grey hair.
4 anonymous, nondescript, unidentifiable.
--n.
1 a a grey colour or pigment. b grey clothes or material (dressed in grey).
2 a cold sunless light.
3 a grey or white horse.
--v.tr. & intr. make or become grey.

Idiom

grey area
1 a situation or topic sharing features of more than one category and not clearly attributable to any one category.
2 S.Afr. an area where Black and Coloured people live (usu. illicitly) alongside White.
3 Brit. an area in economic decline. grey eminence = {Eacute}MINENCE GRISE. Grey Friar a Franciscan friar. grey goose = GREYLAG. grey-hen the female of the black grouse (cf. BLACKCOCK).
grey matter
1 the darker tissues of the brain and spinal cord consisting of nerve-cell bodies and branching dendrites.
2 colloq. intelligence. grey squirrel an American squirrel, Sciurus carolinensis, brought to Europe in the 19th c.

Derivative

greyish adj. greyly adv. greyness n.

Etymology

OE gr{aelig}g f. Gmc

THESAURUS

grey

Quaker-colored, achromatic, achromic, acier, advanced, advanced in life, advanced in years, aged, along in years, ancient, anemic, ashen, ashy, bay, bayard, black, bleak, bled white, bloodless, boring, buckskin, cadaverous, calico pony, canescence, canescent, cheerless, chestnut, chloranemic, cinereous, cinerous, cloudy, colorless, dapple, dapple-gray, dappled, dappled-gray, dark, dead, deadly pale, deathly pale, depressing, dim, dimmed, dingy, discolored, dismal, dove-colored, dove-gray, drab, drabness, drear, drearisome, dreary, dull, dullness, dun, dusty, elderly, etiolated, experienced, exsanguinated, exsanguine, exsanguineous, faded, faint, fallow, flat, foggy, funebrial, funereal, ghastly, glaucescence, glaucescent, glaucous, glaucousness, gloomy, glum, grave, gray, gray with age, gray-black, gray-brown, gray-colored, gray-drab, gray-green, gray-haired, gray-headed, gray-spotted, gray-toned, gray-white, grayed, grayish, grayishness, grayness, grim, griseous, grizzle, grizzled, grizzly, grown old, haggard, hoar, hoary, hueless, humdrum, hypochromic, iron-gray, lackluster, lead-gray, leaden, leadenness, livid, lividity, lividness, lurid, lusterless, mat, mature, mealy, misty, monotonous, mouse-colored, mouse-gray, mousiness, mousy, muddy, murky, neutral, neutral tint, old, old as Methuselah, overcast, paint, painted pony, pale, pale as death, pale-faced, pallid, pasty, patriarchal, pearl, pearl-gray, pearly, piebald, pinto, repetitive, roan, sad, sallow, same, samely, saturnine, senectuous, sickly, silver, silver-gray, silvered, silveriness, silvery, skewbald, slate-colored, slatiness, slaty, smoke-gray, smokiness, smoky, sober, soberness, solemn, somber, somberness, sombrous, sooty, sorrel, steel-gray, steely, stone-colored, sunless, tallow-faced, taupe, tedious, toneless, triste, uncolored, unrelieved, venerable, wan, washed-out, waxen, weak, weariful, wearisome, weary, whey-faced, white, white with age, white-bearded, white-crowned, white-haired, wise, wrinkled, wrinkly, years old

ROGET THESAURUS

grey

Gray

N gray, neutral tint, silver, pepper and salt, chiaroscuro, grisaille, Payne's gray, black, gray, grey, iron-gray, dun, drab, dingy, leaden, livid, somber, sad, pearly, russet, roan, calcareous, limy, favillous, silver, silvery, silvered, ashen, ashy, cinereous, cineritious, grizzly, grizzled, slate-colored, stone-colored, mouse-colored, ash-colored, cool.