What does gray mean?

What does gray mean?. The world's largest and most trusted free online dictionary: definitions, synonyms, word origins, example sentences, word games, and more.

What does gray mean? - The Free Dictionary

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[n] a neutral achromatic color midway between white and black[v] make grey(The painter decided to grey the sky)[a] of an achromatic color of any lightness intermediate between the extremes of white and black(the little grey cells gray flannel suit a man with greyish hair)[n] clothing that

gray

gray - The Free Dictionary

[n] a neutral achromatic color midway between white and black

[v] make grey
(The painter decided to grey the sky)

[a] of an achromatic color of any lightness intermediate between the extremes of white and black
(the little grey cells gray flannel suit a man with greyish hair)

[n] clothing that is a grey color
(he was dressed in grey)

[v] turn grey
(Her hair began to grey)

[a] showing characteristics of age, especially having grey or white hair
(whose beard with age is hoar nodded his hoary head)

[n] any organization or party whose uniforms or badges are grey
(the Confederate army was a vast grey)

[a] used to signify the Confederate forces in the American Civil War (who wore grey uniforms)
(a stalwart grey figure)

[n] horse of a light gray or whitish color

[a] intermediate in character or position
(a grey area between clearly legal and strictly illegal)

[n] the SI unit of energy absorbed from ionizing radiation; equal to the absorption of one joule of radiation energy by one kilogram of matter; one gray equals 100 rad

[n] English radiobiologist in whose honor the gray (the SI unit of energy for the absorbed dose of radiation) was named (1905-1965)

[n] English poet best known for his elegy written in a country churchyard (1716-1771)

[n] American navigator who twice circumnavigated the globe and who discovered the Columbia River (1755-1806)

[n] United States botanist who specialized in North American flora and who was an early supporter of Darwin's theories of evolution (1810-1888)

Other vocabulary

g, g clef, g suit, g-force, g-jo, g-man, g-string, g. b. shaw, g. e. moore, g. k. chesterton, g. l. von blucher, g. r. kirchhoff, g. stanley hall, g.i., ga, gaap, gab, gaba, gabapentin, gabardine, gabble, gabbro, gabby, gaberdine, gabfest, gable, gable end, gable roof, gable wall, gabled, r, r and b, r-2, r. b. cattell, r. buckminster fuller, r. j. mitchell, r.c., r.v., ra, rabat, rabato, rabbet, rabbet joint, rabbet plane, rabbi, rabbi moses ben maimon, rabbinate, rabbinic, rabbinical, rabbit, rabbit bandicoot, rabbit brush, rabbit burrow, rabbit bush, rabbit ears, rabbit fever, rabbit food, rabbit hole, rabbit hutch, rabbit on

Dictionary

A dictionary is a listing of lexemes from the lexicon of one or more specific languages, often arranged alphabetically (or by consonantal root for Semitic languages or radical and stroke for ideographic languages), which may include information on definitions, usage, etymologies, pronunciations, translation, etc. It is a lexicographical reference that shows inter-relationships among the data.

A broad distinction is made between general and specialized dictionaries. Specialized dictionaries include words in specialist fields, rather than a complete range of words in the language. Lexical items that describe concepts in specific fields are usually called terms instead of words, although there is no consensus whether lexicology and terminology are two different fields of study. In theory, general dictionaries are supposed[citation needed] to be semasiological, mapping word to definition, while specialized dictionaries are supposed to be onomasiological, first identifying concepts and then establishing the terms used to designate them. In practice, the two approaches are used for both types. There are other types of dictionaries that do not fit neatly into the above distinction, for instance bilingual (translation) dictionaries, dictionaries of synonyms (thesauri), and rhyming dictionaries. The word dictionary (unqualified) is usually understood to refer to a general purpose monolingual dictionary.

There is also a contrast between prescriptive or descriptive dictionaries; the former reflect what is seen as correct use of the language while the latter reflect recorded actual use. Stylistic indications (e.g. "informal" or "vulgar") in many modern dictionaries are also considered by some to be less than objectively descriptive.

The first recorded dictionaries date back to Sumerian times around 2300 BCE, in the form of bilingual dictionaries, and the oldest surviving monolingual dictionaries are Chinese dictionaries c. 3rd century BCE. The first purely English alphabetical dictionary was A Table Alphabeticall, written in 1604, and monolingual dictionaries in other languages also began appearing in Europe at around this time. The systematic study of dictionaries as objects of scientific interest arose as a 20th-century enterprise, called lexicography, and largely initiated by Ladislav Zgusta. The birth of the new discipline was not without controversy, with the practical dictionary-makers being sometimes accused by others of having an "astonishing" lack of method and critical-self reflection.