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Grey (more frequent in British English) or gray (more frequent in American English) "'Gray' vs. 'Grey': What is the Difference?", Merriam-Webster. Retrieved on July 8, 2023. is an intermediate color between black and white. It is a neutral or achromatic color, meaning that it has no chroma. Webster's New World Dictionary of the American Language, Third College Edition. It is the color of a cloud-covered sky, of wood ash, and of lead. Shorter Oxford English Dictionary, 5th edition, 2002.
The first recorded use of grey as a color name in the English language was in 700 Common Era.Maerz and Paul A Dictionary of Color New York:1930 McGraw-Hill Page 196 Grey is the dominant spelling in European and Commonwealth English, while gray is more common in American English; however, both spellings are valid in both varieties of English.Osmond, Candace. "Gray or Grey – Are Both Correct?", Grammarist. Retrieved on July 8, 2023.
In Europe and North America, surveys show that gray is the color most commonly associated with neutrality, conformity, boredom, uncertainty, old age, apathy, and modesty. Only one percent of respondents chose it as their favorite color.Heller, Eva, Psychologie de la Couleur, p. 224-242
The distinction between grey and gray spellings in usual Commonwealth and American English respectively developed the 20th century.
Grey was also frequently used for the drawing of oil paintings, a technique called grisaille. The painting would first be composed in grey and white, and then the colors, made with thin transparent glazes, would be added on top. The grisaille beneath would provide the shading, visible through the layers of color. Sometimes, the grisaille was simply left uncovered, giving the appearance of carved stone.
Grey was a particularly good background color for gold and for skin tones. It became the most common background for the portraits of Rembrandt van Rijn and for many of the paintings of El Greco, who used it to highlight the faces and costumes of the central figures. The palette of Rembrandt was composed almost entirely of somber colors. He composed his warm greys out of black pigments made from charcoal or burnt animal bones, mixed with lead white or a white made of lime, which he warmed with a little red lake pigment color from cochineal or rose madder. In one painting, the portrait of Margaretha de Geer (1661), one part of a grey wall in the background is painted with a layer of dark brown over a layer of orange, red, and yellow earths, mixed with ivory black and some lead white. Over this he put an additional layer of glaze made of mixture of blue smalt, red ochre, and yellow lake. Using these ingredients and many others, he made greys which had, according to art historian Philip Ball, "an incredible subtlety of pigmentation".Philip Ball (2001), Bright Earth, Art and the Invention of Colour, pp. 214–215 (French translation). The warm, dark and rich greys and browns served to emphasize the golden light on the faces in the paintings.
Women's fashion in the 19th century was dominated by Paris, while men's fashion was set by London. The grey business suit appeared in the mid-19th century in London; light grey in summer, dark grey in winter; replacing the more colorful palette of men's clothing early in the century.
The clothing of women working in the factories and workshops of Paris in the 19th century was usually grey. This gave them the name of grisettes. " Gris" or grey also meant drunk, and the name " grisette" was also given to the lower class of Parisian prostitutes.
Grey also became a common color for military uniforms; in an age of rifles with longer range, soldiers in grey were less visible as targets than those in blue or red. Grey was the color of the uniforms of the Confederate Army during the American Civil War, and of the Prussian Army for active service wear from 1910 onwards.
Several artists of the mid-19th century used tones of grey to create memorable paintings; Jean-Baptiste-Camille Corot used tones of green-grey and blue grey to give harmony to his landscapes, and James McNeill Whistler created a special grey for the background of the portrait of his mother, and for his own self-portrait.
Whistler's arrangement of tones of grey had an effect on the world of music, on the French composer Claude Debussy. In 1894, Debussy wrote to violinist Eugène Ysaÿe describing his Nocturnes as "an experiment in the combinations that can be obtained from one color – what a study in grey would be in painting".Weintraub, Stanley. 2001. Whistler: a biography (New York: Da Capo Press). . p. 351
After the war, the grey business suit became a metaphor for uniformity of thought, popularized in such books as The Man in the Gray Flannel Suit (1955), which became a successful film in 1956.Eva Heller, Psychologie de la couleur- effets et symboliques, pg. 236–237
Stratiform clouds are a layer of clouds that covers the entire sky, and which have a depth of between a few hundred to a few thousand feet thick. The thicker the clouds, the darker they appear from below, because little of the sunlight is able to pass through. From above, in an airplane, the same clouds look perfectly white, but from the ground the sky looks gloomy and grey.
Melanin itself is the product of a specialised cell, the melanocyte, which is found in each hair follicle, from which the hair grows. As hair grows, the melanocyte injects melanin into the hair cells, which contain the protein keratin and which makes up our hair, skin, and nails. As long as the melanocytes continue injecting melanin into the hair cells, the hair retains its original colour. At a certain age, however, which varies from person to person, the amount of melanin injected is reduced and eventually stops. The hair, without pigment, turns grey and eventually white. The reason for this decline of production of melanocytes is uncertain. In the February 2005 issue of Science, a team of Harvard scientists suggested that the cause was the failure of the melanocyte stem cells to maintain the production of the essential pigments, due to age or genetic factors, after a certain period of time. For some people, the breakdown comes in their twenties; for others, many years later. According to the site of the magazine Scientific American, "Generally speaking, among Caucasians 50 percent are 50 percent grey by age 50." Adult male gorillas also develop silver hair, but only on their backs – see Physical characteristics of gorillas.
Today the grey on televisions, computer displays, and telephones is usually created using the RGB colour model. Red, green, and blue light combined at full intensity on the black screen makes white; by lowering the intensity, it is possible to create all the different shades of grey.
In printing, grey is usually obtained with the CMYK colour model. By using black ink at a lower density than the one needed to print black, all the shades of grey can be created. Grey can also be formed by mixing cyan, magenta, and yellow in a specific proportion, each at a low or moderate density. Usually, both methods are combined.
Most greys have a cool or a warm cast to them, as the human eye can detect even a minute amount of colour saturation. Adding a small amount of yellow, orange, or red will create a "warm grey". Adding a small amount of green, cyan, blue, or violet will form a "cool grey". When no colour is added, the colour is "neutral grey", "achromatic grey", or simply "grey". Images consisting wholly of black, white and greys are called monochrome, black-and-white, or greyscale.
| Warm grey | Cool grey |
| Mixed with yellow | Mixed with blue |
| { | |||
| (rendered by name) | (rendered by hex triplet) | ||
| gainsboro | #DCDCDC | ||
| lightgray | #D3D3D3 | ||
| silver | #C0C0C0 | ||
| darkgray | #A9A9A9 | ||
| gray | #808080 | ||
| dimgray | #696969 | ||
| lightslategray | #77 8899 | ||
| slategray | #70 8090 | ||
| darkslategray | #2F 4F4F |
In the early 19th century, a new grey, Payne's grey, appeared on the market. Payne's grey is a dark blue-grey, a mixture of ultramarine and black or of ultramarine and sienna. It is named after William Payne, a British artist who painted in the late 18th century. The first recorded use of Payne's grey as a colour name in English was in 1835.Maerz and Paul A Dictionary of Color New York:1930 McGraw-Hill Page 201; Colour Sample of Payne’s Grey: Page 117 Plate 47 Color Sample A9
Buddhist monks and priests in Japan and Korea will often wear a sleeved grey, brown, or black outer robe.
Taoist priests in China also often wear grey.
The term "grey power" or "the grey vote" is sometimes used to describe the influence of older voters as a voting bloc. In the United States, older people are more likely to vote, and usually vote to protect certain social benefits, such as Social Security.
Greys is a term sometimes used pejoratively by environmentalists in the green movement to describe those who oppose environmental measures and supposedly prefer the grey of concrete and cement.
The new uniforms were designed by Nicola Marschall, a German-American artist, who also designed the original Confederate flag. He closely followed the design of contemporary French and Austrian military uniforms. Grey was not chosen for its camouflage value; this benefit was not appreciated for several more decades. The South lacked a major dye industry, though, and grey dyes were inexpensive and easy to manufacture. While some units had uniforms colored with good-quality dyes, which were a solid bluish-grey, others had uniforms colored with vegetable dyes made from sumac or logwood, which quickly faded in sunshine to the yellowish color of butternut squash.
The German Army wore grey uniforms from 1907 until 1945, during both the First World War and Second World War. The color chosen was a grey-green called feldgrau (). It was chosen because it was less visible at a distance than the previous German uniforms, which were Prussian blue. It was one of the first uniform colors to be chosen for its camouflage value, important in the new age of smokeless powder and more accurate rifles and machine guns. It gave the Germans a distinct advantage at the beginning of the First World War, when the French soldiers were dressed in blue jackets and red trousers. The Finnish Army also began using grey uniforms on the German model.
Some of the more recent uniforms of the German Army and East German Army were field grey, as were some uniforms of the Swedish army. The formal dress (M/83) of the Finnish Army is grey. The Army of Chile wears field grey today.
Grey is the color most commonly associated in many cultures with the elderly and old age, because of the association with grey hair; it symbolizes the wisdom and dignity that come with experience and age. The New York Times is sometimes called The Grey Lady because of its long history and esteemed position in American journalism.Eva Heller, Psychologie de la couleur- effets et symboliques, pg. 234.
Grey is the color most often associated in Europe and America with modesty.
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