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ENGLISH · A WORD WITH POSSIBILITIES

grey.

Commonwealth standard spelling of gray.

4 characters1 syllables approx.English language

Meaning & usage

adj/ɡɹeɪ/UK, US
  1. Commonwealth standard spelling of gray.

  2. Synonym of coloured (pertaining to the mixed race of black and white).

    South-Africa · slang
Where this word comes from

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”)).

verb/ɡɹeɪ/UK, US
  1. Commonwealth standard spelling of gray.

Where this word comes from

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”)).

noun/ɡɹeɪ/UK, US
  1. Commonwealth standard spelling of gray.

Where this word comes from

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”)).

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Definitions, grammatical labels, IPA, etymology and examples: Wiktionary contributors, extracted by Kaikki / Wiktextract. Adapted under CC BY-SA 4.0. Selected fields and authored examples are shown; third-party quotations and audio are omitted. See contributor history.

Last enriched 2026-09-10. Definitions are in English. Romanizations are shown when supplied by the source; syllable estimates are omitted for unsupported scripts.