grey
/ɡɹeɪ/
Word Rarity
Uncommon
Frequency: 4.48 in modern English
8
Scrabble Score
4
Letters
1
Syllables
4
Unique Chars
Meaning
adj
verb
noun
Example Sentences
- "These grey and dun colors may be also produced by mixing whites and blacks."
- "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 character much in contrast with the green verdure encountered on the northern end of this interesting branch line."
- "Now only a few hand-hewn cedar planks and roof beams remained, moss-grown and sagging—a few totem poles, greyed and split."
- "Woe worth the chase, woe worth the day, / That costs thy life, my gallant grey."
- "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 the chase."
Etymology
Etymology tree Proto-Indo-European *ǵʰreh₁-der.? Proto-Germanic *grēwaz Proto-West Germanic *grāg Old English [Term?] Old English grēġ Middle English grey English grey 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”)).
Origin
Word Breakdown
- Root: *gʰreh₁-, grey, grēġ, *grēwaz, *ǵʰreh₁-
Regional Pronunciation
- American English: /ɡɹeɪ/
- British English: /ɡɹeɪ/
Usage
- Slang
- Countable
- Uncountable
- Informal
- British usage
Inflected Forms
greyer (comparative)
more grey (comparative)
greyest (superlative)
most grey (superlative)
greys (present, singular)
greying (participle, present)
greyed (participle, past)
greyed (past)
greys (plural)