Greyest

Part of speech: adjective

Definitions

1. The quality of having the most significant level of indistinctness or dimness in hue
2. A state marked by the utmost absence of brightness or vibrant color saturation
3. Exhibiting the highest degree of grayness with minimal brightness or color intensity

Etymology: "Greyest" is the superlative of "grey", and it follows the regular pattern of adding "-est" to a short adjective, so there is no separate history to trace in the ending itself. The base word goes back to Old English "grēġ", which was already in use before the Norman Conquest and descends from a Proto-Germanic root "grēwaz". Its relatives include Dutch "grauw", German "grau" and Old Norse "grár", so the colour name has been stable across the Germanic languages for a very long time. The root has an unexpected link to other words. Its Proto-Indo-European ancestor, reconstructed as "ǵʰreh₁-", is tied to the sense "to shine" or "to glance", and it appears in Latin "rāvus", meaning grey, as well as in Lithuanian "žeriù", "to shine". The colour and the idea of light or looking share a single origin, which is a reminder that many colour words began as descriptions of how things appear rather than as names for hues.

Synonyms: dullest, bleakest

Antonyms: brightest, vividest