Gray or grey?
In American English write gray; in British and Commonwealth English, grey. gray is an adjective meaning “Of a color between black and white, having neutral hue and intermediate…”; grey is an adjective meaning “Commonwealth standard spelling of gray”. They sound the same (/ɡɹeɪ/). In written English (wordfreq, 2021 data) grey is about as common as gray.
What is the difference between gray and grey?
| gray | grey | |
|---|---|---|
| Part of speech | adjective, verb, noun | adjective, verb, noun |
| Meaning | USOf a color between black and white, having neutral hue and intermediate brightness USDreary, gloomy, cloudy USTo turn gray | Commonwealth standard spelling of gray UKA member of the Royal Scots Greys, a cavalry regiment of the British Army from 1707 to 1971 |
| Example | I have already gone gray and lost my looks | none recorded |
| Forms | grayer, grayest | greyer, greyest |
| Pronunciation | /ɡɹeɪ/ | /ɡɹeɪ/ |
| Region | US | Commonwealth |
| In writing | 28 times per million words | 30 times per million words |
Sources: gray and grey in the English Wiktionary, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0); written frequency: wordfreq 3.1 (a 2021 snapshot of Wikipedia, subtitles, news, books, web text and social media).
Every current meaning of gray and grey
gray
- 1
USOf a color between black and white, having neutral hue and intermediate brightness
- 2
USTo turn gray
My hair is beginning to gray
- 3
USAn achromatic colour between black and white
- 4
USIn 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
- 5
USDreary, gloomy, cloudy
- 6
USslangTo turn progressively older, alluding to graying of hair through aging (used in context of the population of a geographic region)
the graying of America
- 7
USA gray dye or pigment
- 8
USOf indistinct, disputed or uncertain quality or acceptability
grey
- 1
Commonwealth standard spelling of gray
- 2
Commonwealth standard spelling of gray
- 3
Commonwealth standard spelling of gray
- 4
UKA member of the Royal Scots Greys, a cavalry regiment of the British Army from 1707 to 1971
- 5
slangSynonym of coloured (pertaining to the mixed race of black and white)
Source: the English Wiktionary, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0); obsolete, archaic, dialect and rare senses left out.
Which is more common, gray or grey?
gray appears 28 times per million words; grey 30 times per million words.
gray 28 times per million wordsgrey 30 times per million words
Source: written frequency: wordfreq 3.1 (a 2021 snapshot of Wikipedia, subtitles, news, books, web text and social media).
How many people search gray vs grey?
“gray vs grey” is searched about 49,500 times a month on Google and 2,400 on Bing in the United States. Google counts close variants of a query together (“grey vs gray”, “gray or grey”).
Sources: Google Ads keyword data through DataForSEO and Microsoft Advertising keyword data through DataForSEO, the average month from September 2025 to August 2026.