gray
adjective
of a color between white and black; having a neutral hue.
gray
1 American
[grey]
/ greɪ /
especially British,
grey
adjective
-
grayer,
comparative
-
grayest
superlative
-
of a color between white and black; having a neutral hue.
-
dark, dismal, or gloomy.
gray skies.
-
dull, dreary, or monotonous.
-
having gray hair; gray-headed.
-
pertaining to old age; mature.
-
Informal. pertaining to, involving, or composed of older persons.
gray households.
-
old or ancient.
-
indeterminate and intermediate in character.
The tax audit concentrated on deductions in the gray area between purely personal and purely business expenses.
noun
-
any achromatic color; any color with zero chroma, intermediate between white and black.
-
something of this color.
-
gray material or clothing.
to dress in gray.
-
an unbleached and undyed condition.
-
(often initial capital letter) a member of the Confederate army in the American Civil War or the army itself.
-
a horse of a gray color.
-
a horse that appears white but is not an albino.
verb (used with or without object)
-
grays,
present (3rd person singular)
-
grayed,
past participle, past
-
graying
present participle
gray
2
American
[grey]
/ greɪ /
noun
Physics.
Gray
3
American
[grey]
/ greɪ /
noun
-
Asa 1810–88, U.S. botanist.
-
Robert, 1755–1806, U.S. explorer and sea captain: discovered the Columbia River.
-
Thomas, 1716–71, English poet.
gray
1
British
/ ɡreɪ /
adjective
gray
2
British
/ ɡreɪ /
noun
Gray
3
British
/ ɡreɪ /
noun
gray
Scientific
/ grā /
gray
Idioms
Usage
What’s the difference between gray and grey? Gray and grey are simply different spellings of the same word, which refers to the color halfway between black and white (among other more figurative meanings). In popular use, the two spellings are used interchangeably, though one spelling is often preferred in many places. The spelling gray is much more common in American English, while grey is more common in British English. Remember: spell gray with an a in America, and spell grey with an e in England (among other places). Want to learn more? Read the full breakdown of the difference between gray and grey.
Other Word Forms
Derived Forms
Inflected Forms
Adjectives
Participles
Conjugated Forms
Present
-
graysimple
-
grayssimple
-
have grayedperfect
-
has grayedperfect
-
am grayingprogressive
-
are grayingprogressive
-
is grayingprogressive
-
have been grayingperfect progressive
-
has been grayingperfect progressive
Past
-
grayedsimple
-
had grayedperfect
-
was grayingprogressive
-
were grayingprogressive
-
had been grayingperfect progressive
Future
Etymology
Origin of gray1
First recorded before 900; Middle English grei, grai, Old English grǣg, grēg; cognate with German grau, Old Norse grār
Origin of gray2
First recorded in 1975; named in honor of Louis Harold Gray (1905–65), English radiobiologist
Explanation
Because the color gray is between black and white — actually a mix of the two — it is often used to denote something dull or monotonous. When the sun comes out after a long stretch of gray days, you suddenly feel alive again. Everybody to the beach! You might feel old when you see your gray hairs, but I think they make you look wise and distinguished. Because gray is dull and indistinct, you can refer to something not quite clear as being "in a gray area." You often find some gray area between right and wrong . . . especially when you are accused of doing something wrong. Don’t worry about the British spelling "grey": it’s interchangeable with the American English spelling.
Vocabulary lists containing gray
Example Sentences
Examples are provided to illustrate real-world usage of words in context. Any opinions expressed do not reflect the views of Dictionary.com.
See Examples For:
The pot was compact enough to fit in a palm, with a simple rim, a smooth dull gray surface, and no decoration.
From Science Daily ● Aug. 22, 2026
Everything else, beyond copy-and-pasting sentences directly from an LLM into your manuscript, is a gray area.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Aug. 17, 2026
These letters haven’t been issued since the Civil War, but the parallel is obvious and creates shades of gray that could present major problems.
From Salon ● Aug. 17, 2026
He noted the peninsula had once been home to animals such as pronghorn, sea otter, North American porcupine, Humboldt marten, gray wolf, American black bear, grizzlies, northern fur seal and Steller sea lion.
From Los Angeles Times ● Aug. 16, 2026
Someone had told him about the gray smoke men who lived in the rocks, I knew that.
From "Nory Ryan’s Song" by Patricia Reilly Giff
Earlier, Justice Secretary Neil Gray defended the use of business-class flights.
From BBC ● Aug. 20, 2026
"Twelve percent of all of the UK's strategic road network is in the highest risk zone for flooding, and 20 percent of the rail network is," Gray said.
From Barron's ● Aug. 12, 2026
“They deepened my respect for all wildlife, not just bald eagles, and reminded me that we, as humans, must do more to protect wildlife habitats around the world,” South Pasadena’s Annette Gray said.
From Los Angeles Times ● Aug. 11, 2026
Victoria Gray sat in a Nashville, Tenn., hospital in 2019 while doctors infused her own genetically engineered cells back into her veins.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Aug. 10, 2026
Gray ash collects on the grate; black burns scar logs.
From "Paradise on Fire" by Jewell Parker Rhodes
On an afternoon that was cooler and grayer than Thursday, the woman ranked No. 1 in the world got back on track.
From Los Angeles Times ● Jun. 5, 2026
In prediction markets, the rules are considerably grayer, as the Harvard Law School Forum on Corporate Governance detailed last month.
From Slate ● Apr. 24, 2026
Just tell Claude: Make the gray background a little grayer.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Jan. 23, 2026
Marcus Mariota’s hair is grayer now than when he entered the NFL as a highly touted prospect and a potential face of a franchise.
From Seattle Times ● Mar. 14, 2024
Everything faded from gray to grayer to grayer still, so that soon there was hardly any color, and then the gray was so dark that Turner couldn’t see through it.
From "Lizzie Bright and the Buckminster Boy" by Gary D. Schmidt
Presumably the same is true of the grayest day.
From Los Angeles Times ● Jun. 21, 2023
More than 1 in 5 people are over 65, a rate on par with some of the world’s grayest nations.
From Washington Post ● Apr. 11, 2023
It makes a great coffee table book, one that can help inspire on even the grayest of days.
From The Verge ● Apr. 28, 2022
Even during the grayest of winter months, there is plenty of green, and pops of color and beauty around the region in arboretums and botanical gardens.
From Seattle Times ● Jan. 8, 2022
Over the wild moor, in reddest dawn of morning,Gaily the huntsman down green droves must roam:Over the wild moor, in grayest wane of evening,Weary the huntsman comes wandering home;Home, home,If he has one.
From The Saint's Tragedy by Charles Kingsley
Recognizable by a subtle sparkly strip hidden inside a collar or on an aglet at the end of a drawstring cord, Cucinelli’s luxury clothing brand employs a muted palette of tans and grays.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Aug. 6, 2026
The biggest problem involved the neutral axis, the line of grays that runs from black to white.
From Science Daily ● Jun. 7, 2026
The broker had staged the house with attractive furniture in taupes and grays.
From Slate ● Mar. 6, 2025
She occasionally paints in acrylic directly onto acoustic panels, sometimes in muted grays and whites that very nearly appear to blend into the wall.
From New York Times ● May 10, 2024
Nearby was a cluster of men wearing mismatched uniforms, the greens, grays, and blues almost indistinguishable from my distance.
From "Endangered" by Eliot Schrefer
In the distance, somewhat grayed by atmospheric haze, are the smokestacks and cooling tower of the power plant.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Jul. 22, 2026
Despite aggressive debridement — daily surgical scrapings of her wounds to clean out the infection — and expensive medications, the tissues in her leg grayed at the edges.
From New York Times ● Nov. 26, 2024
“Literally nothing?” the CNN anchor said in disbelief during the live broadcast when the Magic Wall showed a grayed out map.
From Los Angeles Times ● Nov. 6, 2024
The fire department noted that the large amounts of logs and brush inside the landfill helped produce the prodigious plumes of smoke that further grayed out the sky well into Tuesday.
From Washington Times ● Jun. 6, 2023
The islet stretched below around them, all grayed out in the haze.
From "The Boy Who Met a Whale" by Nizrana Farook
Cox joined Young on the Greek Desk at age 50, “single, graying, and somewhat frail in health,” Mr. Talty writes.
From The Wall Street Journal ● May 31, 2026
Behind him, a mature Joshua tree was dying, its graying limbs drooping sadly.
From Los Angeles Times ● May 19, 2026
More recent new construction hasn’t replaced America’s graying housing stock, meaning the age of the median home is a record 44 years, according to the Harvard Joint Center for Housing Studies.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Apr. 5, 2026
Kansas City Federal Reserve President Jeff Schmid has found a silver lining in America’s graying demographics: All of those extra visits to the doctor are good for the economy.
From Barron's ● Apr. 3, 2026
Rafey and Tariq are met at the door by a small, thin woman with graying hair, her smile as warm as honeyed paratha.
From "A Place at the Table" by Saadia Faruqi and Laura Shovan
Definitions and idiom definitions from Dictionary.com Unabridged, based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2023
Idioms from The American Heritage® Idioms Dictionary copyright © 2002, 2001, 1995 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company.
