Tray or trey?
tray is a noun meaning “A small, typically rectangular or round, flat, and rigid object upon which…”; trey is a noun meaning “A playing card or die with the rank of three”. They sound the same (/tɹeɪ/). In written English (wordfreq, 2021 data) tray is about 2.1 times as common as trey.
What is the difference between tray and trey?
| tray | trey | |
|---|---|---|
| Part of speech | noun, verb | noun |
| Meaning | A small, typically rectangular or round, flat, and rigid object upon which things are carried The items on a full tray to place (items) on a tray | A playing card or die with the rank of three A score of three in cards, dice, or dominoes |
| Example | I carefully arranged the dishes on the tray and brought it upstairs | none recorded |
| Forms | trays | treys |
| Pronunciation | /tɹeɪ/ | /tɹeɪ/ |
| In writing | 5.6 times per million words | 2.7 times per million words |
Sources: tray and trey 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 tray and trey
tray
- 1
A small, typically rectangular or round, flat, and rigid object upon which things are carried
I carefully arranged the dishes on the tray and brought it upstairs
- 2
to place (items) on a tray
Be sure to tray eggs with the large end up
- 3
Alternative form of trey (“third branch of deer's antler”)
- 4
A gay trans person, particularly a man (a man who is both transgender and gay)
- 5
The items on a full tray
Before long they had consumed a whole tray of shrimp cocktails and sent for another
- 6
to slide down a snow-covered hill on a tray from a cafeteria
Traying has provided collegiate fun and the occasional fatality for decades
- 7
A component of a device into which an item is placed for use in the device's operations
The CD tray will not open
- 8
informalA notification area used for icons and alerts
trey
- 1
A playing card or die with the rank of three
- 2
A score of three in cards, dice, or dominoes
- 3
AustraliainformalA three penny coin; a thrippence
- 4
informalThe third bearer of the same personal name in a family, often denoted by suffixed Roman numeral III
- 5
The third branch of a deer's antler
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, tray or trey?
tray appears 5.6 times per million words; trey 2.7 times per million words.
tray 5.6 times per million wordstrey 2.7 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 tray vs trey?
“tray vs trey” is searched about 210 times a month on Google and 30 on Bing in the United States. Google counts close variants of a query together (“trey vs tray”, “tray or trey”).
Sources: Google Ads keyword data through DataForSEO and Microsoft Advertising keyword data through DataForSEO, the average month from September 2025 to August 2026.