grey

Forms

• gray (US)

Etymology

It is inherited from Middle English greie, inherited from Old English grǣg, Mercian grēi,^[2][3] from Proto-Germanic *grewa-,^[2][4] the source also of Old Norse grár, Dutch grauw and German grau.^[2][3][4] It has no certain relatives outside Germanic,^[2] though Barnhart derives it from a root *ĝher-.^[3] French gris and Italian grigio were borrowed from Germanic.^[2]

Earliest recorded meaning

The colour between black and white: about 700 (Mercian grēi) and about 725 in Barnhart, before 1000 in the OED.^[3][5]

Semantic evolution

Since the Middle Ages it has described an overcast sky,^[6] and of hair, grey or turning white, it is from 1207.^[7] Grey friars, the Franciscans, are named for the colour of their habit.^[5] The noun is from about 1200,^[2][3] and the verb, to become grey, from the 1610s, with an isolated example in Sir Gawain and the Green Knight.^[2][3] Dismal or gloomy is from the early 18th century in Word Origins and 1794 in the Historical Thesaurus,^[6][7] dull and uneventful from 1830,^[7] and ambiguous, not black or white, from 1835, hence grey area.^[7][6] In the American Civil War the Confederate troops were the grays from 1863, after their uniforms.^[2]

Timeline

• c. 700 – the colour.^[3]
• c. 1200 – noun, grey colour.^[2][3]
• 1207 – of grey hair.^[7]
• 1610s – verb, to grow grey.^[2]
• 1794 – gloomy.^[7]
• 1835 – ambiguous.^[7]
• 1863 – the Confederate grays.^[2]

Modern meaning

Adjective

1. Of the colour of ash or lead, between black and white.
2. Of the weather, dull and cloudy.
3. Having grey hair; old.
4. Dull, boring or sad.

Noun

1. A grey colour.
2. A grey horse.

Verb

1. To become or make grey, especially of hair.

Word family

• greyly
• greyness

Related words

• gray
• greyhound
• grayling
• grizzle

Usage notes

Grey is the usual British spelling and gray the American; the distinction developed in the 20th century,^[2] and the spelling is fixed only in some compounds, such as greyhound and grayling.^[3] The gray, a unit of absorbed radiation (1975), is named after the British radiobiologist L. H. Gray.^[5][8] The expression the gray mare is the better horse, of households ruled by the wife, is from the 1540s.^[2]

References

1. ^ Jones, Daniel (2011), Cambridge English Pronouncing Dictionary, 18th ed., ed. Peter Roach, Jane Setter and John Esling, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press
2. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l m Harper, Douglas. Online Etymology Dictionary, https://www.etymonline.com
3. ^ a b c d e f g h i Barnhart, Robert K. (1988), The Barnhart Dictionary of Etymology
4. ^ a b Hoad, T. F., ed. (1986), The Concise Oxford Dictionary of English Etymology, Oxford: Clarendon Press
5. ^ a b c Simpson, J. A.; Weiner, E. S. C., eds. (1989), The Oxford English Dictionary, 2nd ed., Oxford: Clarendon Press
6. ^ a b c Cresswell, Julia (2021), Oxford Dictionary of Word Origins, 3rd ed., Oxford: Oxford University Press
7. ^ a b c d e f g Kay, Christian; Roberts, Jane; Samuels, Michael; Wotherspoon, Irené, eds. (2009), Historical Thesaurus of the Oxford English Dictionary, Oxford: Oxford University Press; online edition (2024)
8. ^ Merriam-Webster Unabridged Dictionary (2024), online ed., Springfield, Mass.: Merriam-Webster