Grey

(Redirected from Gray)

This article is about the colour. For other meanings of "gray" or "grey", see Grey (disambiguation).

**Grey / gray**
Color coordinates

Hex triplet		#808080
RGB	(r, g, b)	(128, 128, 128)
CMYK	(c, m, y, k) ^N	(0, 0, 0, 50)
HSV	(h, s, v)	(0°, 0%, 50%)
	^N: Normalised to [ 0–255 ] (changing to [0–100])

Grey or gray (the latter more usually in American English) is a colour seen commonly in nature. It is created by mixing white and black in different proportions. Depending on the amount of light, the human eye can interpret the same object as either grey or some other colour.

Two colours are called complementary colours if grey is produced when lights of the two colours are combined. The psychological primary colours are:

Other sets of complementary colours include:

Grey is its own complement. In an afterimage, which can be seen after seeing the picture for about 30 seconds, the colours will switch to their complements.

1 Usage, symbolism and colloquial expressions
- 1.1 In fiction
2 Colour coordinates
3 Web colors
4 See also

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Usage, symbolism and colloquial expressions

Grey symbolizes mediocrity, the background noise.
- "Grey life", meaning mere existence without much sense or goal.
- A "grey person" is someone who goes unnoticed, a wallflower.
In a moral sense grey is either used
- pejoratively to describe situations that have no clear moral value, or
- positively to balance an all-black or all-white view (for example, shades of grey = magnitudes of good/bad)
Grey is associated with autumn, bad weather and sadness.
Grey has been used to describe the industrialism as it is the colour of granite, concrete and other city materials, as opposed to green to describe environmentalism, chlorophyll and plants.
- Urban camouflage is composed of patches of shades of grey, while country camouflage uses ranges of brown and green.
The hair becomes grey as one ages, and hence grey is associated with the elderly, and has inspired the name of the Gray Panthers.
The substance that composes the brain is referred to as "grey matter", and for that reason the colour is associated with things intellectual.
In religion, grey is the colour of ashes, and therefore a biblical symbol of mourning and repentance. It can be used during Lent or on special days of fasting and prayer.

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In fiction

In Tolkien's works:
- Gandalf is called the Grey Wizard.
- The Grey Havens
- The Grey Elves
- The Grey Hills
In Michael Ende's Momo, the Men in grey purport to act as a bank of time, while they consume it themselves.
In The T*Witches series, those of magical power are described as having grey eyes.

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Colour coordinates

RGB

All the grey values in greyscale are solutions of the inequality:

CMYK

All the grey values in greyscale are solutions of the inequality:

<math> 0 \le K \le 255 </math> when <math> C = M = Y = 0 \,</math>.

In theory it is also possible to achieve a greyscale with perfect inks when:

HSV

All the grey values in greyscale are solutions of the inequality:

<math> 0 \le V \le 100 </math> when <math> H = S = 0 \,</math> .

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Web colors

There are several shades of grey/gray available for use with HTML and CSS. Oddly, all are named somethinggray except lightgrey: this can cause unexpected errors.

Name	Sample
lightgrey
gray
darkgray
dimgray
lightslategray
slategray
darkslategray

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Web colors	black	silver	gray	white	red	maroon	purple	fuchsia	green	lime	olive	yellow	orange	blue	navy	teal	aqua
Web colors

Grey

Contents

Usage, symbolism and colloquial expressions

In fiction

Colour coordinates

Web colors

See also