grey
Commonwealth standard spelling of gray.
Adjective
- Commonwealth standard spelling of gray.
- These grey and dun colors may be also produced by mixing whites and blacks. - 1704, I[saac] N[ewton], “(please specify |book=1 to 3)”, in Opticks: Or, A Treatise of the Reflexions, Refractions, Inflexions and Colours of...
- This is itself a cheerless spot, particularly on a rainy day, when, overshadowed by the great massif of rock that towers in the background, and surrounded by the grey and cheerless quarries, it has a depressing...
- Synonym of coloured (pertaining to the mixed race of black and white).
Synonyms: coloured
Origin
From Middle English grey, from Old English grēġ (Anglian). The spelling grey reflects the Anglian vowel development, whereas the variant gray stems from the West Saxon form grǣġ (through Middle English gray). Further derived 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”)).
Forms
Derived
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 cool grey dove grey eastern grey kangaroo flathead grey mullet French grey get grey hair from give grey hair to give someone grey hair great grey owl great grey shrike green-grey grey alder grey alien grey amber
Noun
- Commonwealth standard spelling of gray.
- Woe worth the chase, woe worth the day, / That costs thy life, my gallant grey. - 1810, Walter Scott, “(please specify the canto number or page)”, in The Lady of the Lake; […], Edinburgh: […] [James Ballantyne and Co.]...
- 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...
Forms
Related
Verb
- Commonwealth standard spelling of gray.
- Now only a few hand-hewn cedar planks and roof beams remained, moss-grown and sagging—a few totem poles, greyed and split. - 1941, Emily Carr, chapter 18, in Klee Wyck: