grey

The story

1. Proto-Indo-European*ǵʰreh₁-der.?
2. Proto-Germanic*grēwaz
3. Proto-West Germanic*grāg
4. Old English[Term?]
5. Old Englishgrēġ
6. Middle Englishgrey
7. English todaygrey

From Middle English grey, from Old English grēġ (Anglian). The spelling grey reflects the Anglian vowel development, whereas the variant gray stems from the West Saxon form grǣġ (through Middle English gray). Further derived from Proto-Germanic *grēwaz (compare Dutch grauw, German grau, Old Norse grár), from Proto-Indo-European *ǵʰreh₁- (“to green, to grow”) (compare 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”)).

Words from the same roots