gray area

Idioms  

1. Indeterminate territory, undefined position, neither here nor there. For example, There's a large gray area between what is legal and what is not. This term, which uses gray in the sense of “neither black nor white” (or halfway between the two), dates only from the mid-1900s.

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Example Sentences

I like the straightforward transaction of reserving a hotel room, not the gray area of booking with a stranger who—the cozy “host” title notwithstanding—plans to charge me for my stay.

From The Wall Street Journal

The report said the government is concerned about “gray areas” as well as the prospect of having to negotiate individual use cases.

From MarketWatch

There are potential gray areas — such as whether a large-scale school walkout — which organizers intend to be dramatic — would fall outside this protection because students don’t formally check out, for example.

From Los Angeles Times

“These social changes exist in a legal gray area,” said Andrew Leber, an assistant professor at Tulane University and a nonresident fellow at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace’s Middle East program.

From The Wall Street Journal

In the satellite image, the stadium appears as a gray area just below the Alpine region in the lower left portion of the frame.

From Science Daily