gray, adj. — Green’s Dictionary of Slang

gray adj.

also graymeat, grey

[skin colour, but also f. what blacks perceive as the ‘colourless’ behaviour and character of whites, esp. the middle-classes]

(orig. US black) used of a white person, esp. when racist; usu. in combs., e.g. gray cat, a white man; also ext. to a Latino or Chicano by 1980s.

1938		Pittsburgh Courier (PA) 30 July 11/1: We trekked here to the Motor City [...] for seven brights in this fine gray auditorium.
1940		Pittsburgh Courier (PA) 10 Feb. 7/1: I stached my brown body in that fine gray auditorium.
1944		D. Burley Orig. Hbk of Harlem Jive 12: My conk said grey, but Jackson, I dug the sniffer, a button. [Ibid.] 19: They can’t dig a spade and a fine young gray scribe copping a tapper on the main drag.
1958		Milsap Participant Observation Journal in Wallace Skid Row (1965) 32: Are those hotels spook or gray?
1965		C. Brown Manchild in the Promised Land (1969) 171: I came over to the cab, and he had two gray bitches in it.
1970		J. Conaway Big Easy 87: I wouldn’t care if that bunch of white trash rubbed your gray ass right out.
1973		C. Gaines Stay Hungry 220: Sweet Jesus, you graymeat whore, thought Newton.
1980		J.L. Gwaltney Drylongso 234: There was a gray chick that used to come over here.
1989		J. Morton Lowspeak 68: Greyman – (W.I.) a white person.
2000		G. Pelecanos Shame the Devil 42: I’ve seen those gray girls you’re talking about [...] Naw, you can keep your Caucasian junkies.
2008		G. Pelecanos Way Home (2009) 75: It’s a lot of gray girls they got out there, too.

In compounds

gray boy (n.) (also greyboy) [SE boy + conscious counter to the racists’ ‘black boy’]

(US black) a derog. term for a white person.

1945		C. Himes If He Hollers 127: I run into this gray boy [...] and we got to jawing ’bout a ruff we found on the street.
1951		N. Algren Chicago: City On the Make 57: Find them out for yourself, greyboy.
1965		C. Brown Manchild in the Promised Land (1969) 179: The real hip thing about the ‘baby’ term was that it was something that only colored cats could say the way it was supposed to be said. I’d heard gray boys trying it, but they couldn’t really do it.
1975		J. Carr Bad (1995) 75: These gray-boys and Indians had been taking advantage of us for too long.
1980		J.L. Gwaltney Drylongso 60: I tell all these grayboys, ‘Never mind how you feel, just get out here and deal’.
1992		Bentley & Corbett Prison Sl. 55: Grey Boy A white person.
2000		F.X. Toole Rope Burns 173: You one them gray boys wish he a spade, a ofay boy lookina get soul.
2007		N. McCall Them (2008) 145: I’ll fuck you up, gray boy.

gray broad (n.) (also grey broad) [broad n.² (3)]

(US black) a white woman.

1972		D. Claerbut Black Jargon in White America 66: gray broad n. a Caucasian female; white girl.
1972		J. Maryland ‘Shoe-shine on 63rd’ in Kochman Rappin’ and Stylin’ Out 213: You ought to get that grey broad off the trey, Red.
1994		N. McCall Makes Me Wanna Holler (1995) 42: We lived for a chance to bone a gray broad.

gray dog (n.) [dog n.² (6a)]

1. (US black) the police.

1980

E. Folb Runnin’ Down Some Lines 66: Derisive pejoratives like pig, swine, the hog, gray dog.

2. see dog, the n.¹

gray-meat (n.)

see main sense above.

gray-suit (n.)

see suit n.¹ (3)

SE in slang uses

In compounds

grayback (n.)

see separate entry.

graybar hotel (n.) (also graybar castle, greybar hotel) [its grey walls and steel bars]

(US) prison.

c.1943		‘Bill O. Lading’ You Chirped a Chinful!! n.p.: Graybar Hotel: Guardhouse.
1971		E.E. Landy Underground Dict. (1972).
1981		J. Wambaugh Glitter Dome (1982) 74: ‘Pardon me, Officers,’ said the Greek, who certainly didn’t want to share accommodations at the graybar hotel with a Turk.
2000		Other Side of the Wall: Prisoner’s Dict. July 🌐 Grey Bar Hotel: Prison.
2001		D. Looser Boobslang [U. Canterbury D.Phil. thesis] 81/2: grey bar hotel n. prison.
2002		www.stevewernermusic.com 🌐 Dago is a member of the Sons of Silence MC and currently doing a stretch in the graybar hotel.
2006		J.C. Amberger Hot Trading Secrets 131: He’s cooling his heels in the Graybar Hotel.
2007		N. ‘Razor’ Smith Raiders 3: Tony had been away at the Greybar Hotel for a long time.
2021		T. Pluck Boy from County Hell 322: [W]atching their empire crumble from his gray-bar castle would have to suffice.
2024		D. Swierczynski California Bear 23: Jack, you’ve just been sprung from the Gray Bar Hotel! When’s the last time you had a drink?

graybook (n.)

(US) a piece of printed pornography (presumably bound in plain grey covers).

1953

‘John Eagle’ Hoodlums (2021) 22: He had never read a letter like this. Almost like the graybook French Secretary’s story, only worse. More imagination [...] every sexual position in the bok and in delicate details.

gray coat (n.)

1. see grayback n. (1)

2. see grayback n. (3)

gray-coat-parson (n.)

see grey parson under grey adj.

Gray Goose (n.)

see separate entry.

grayhair (n.)

(US campus) an old person.

[1840

T. Haliburton Letter-bag of the Great Western (1873) 39: Poor fun this, after all; grey hairs ought to be respected, particularly when supported by, a large stomach].

gray mule (n.)

see under mule n.

gray one (n.)

see grayback n. (5)

graystone college (n.) (also gray house, graystone hotel, gray-rock hotel, greystone, greystone college)

(US Und.) prison.

1933		Ersine Und. and Prison Sl.
1949		Monteleone Criminal Sl. (rev. edn) 106: gray house [...] graystone college A jail.
1950		Goldin et al. DAUL 86/2: Greystone college. A prison or penitentiary.
1962		P. Crump Burn, Killer, Burn! 198: I nodded to the County Jail. ‘There’s the Graystone Hotel.’.
1970		B. Seale Seize the Time 219: I was in a maximum security wing of a place everybody calls Big Greystone [i.e. Alameda County jail, Calif.] because the buildings are made of this drab gray stone.