gray

the era of gray, boring banality and stagnation

1980, Daniel C. Gerould, Stanisław I. Witkiewicz, The Beelzebub Sonata: Plays, Essays, Documents:

Of an indistinct, disputed or uncertain quality.

Two hours, whose mighty circle did embrace
More time than might make grey the infant world,
Rolled thus, a weary and tumultuous space: […]

1817 December, Percy Bysshe Shelley, “The Revolt of Islam. […]”, in [Mary] Shelley, editor, The Poetical Works of Percy Bysshe Shelley. […], volume I, London: Edward Moxon […], published 1839, →OCLC, page 206:

In a subculture that idealizes youth, being gay and gray does not exactly make one a hot ticket. Older gays and lesbians often relegate themselves to separate and unequal meeting places.

2004, Betty Berzon, Permanent Partners: Building Gay & Lesbian Relationships That Last, page 20:

the gray dollar

February 8, 1800, Fisher Ames, Eulogy on Washington
Gray experience listened to his counsels with respect, and, at a time when youth is almost privileged to be rash, Virginia committed the safety of her frontier, and ultimately the safety of America, not merely to his valor,—for that would be scarcely praise,—but to his prudence.

en-adj

gray (comparative grayer or more gray, superlative grayest or most gray)

grayer (comparative)
more gray (comparative)
grayest (superlative)
most gray (superlative)
grey (alternative)

grys

of a color somewhere between white and black, as the ash of an ember

From Middle English gray, from Old English grǣġ, from Proto-West Germanic *grāu, from Proto-Germanic *grēwaz, from Proto-Indo-European *ǵʰreh₁- (“to green, to grow”).
See also Dutch grauw, German grau, Old Norse grár); also 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”).


gray

My hair is beginning to gray.

the graying of America

It’s not what advocates of retrofitting the suburbs may have had in mind, but it’s a logical outcome of the graying of America, and of suburbia in particular.

2018 September 18, Amanda Kolson Hurley, “Fake Public Squares Are Coming to the Suburbs”, in The Atlantic:

(demography, slang) To turn progressively older, alluding to graying of hair through aging (used in context of the population of a geographic region)

(transitive, photography) To give a soft effect to (a photograph) by covering the negative while printing with a ground-glass plate.

en-verb

gray (third-person singular simple present grays, present participle graying, simple past and past participle grayed)

grays (present singular third-person)
graying (participle present)
grayed (participle past)
grayed (past)
grey (alternative)


gray

grey:

An achromatic colour between black and white.

An animal or thing of grey colour, such as a horse, badger, or salmon.

Log-shaped barnacles become embedded in the hide of the gray.

1971 Mar, National Geographic, page 411:

Eschrichtius robustus
Eschrichtius robustus#Translingual

(chiefly US, ufology) Synonym of grey alien

(US, two-up) A penny with a tail on both sides, used for cheating.


gray

Coordinate term: rad

International System of Units
International System of Units

In the International System of Units, the derived unit of absorbed dose of radiation (radiation absorbed by a patient); one joule of energy absorbed per kilogram of the patient's mass. Symbol: Gy

Named after English physicist Louis Harold Gray (1905–1965).