The first recorded use of grey as a color name in the English language was in AD 700. Grey is the British, Canadian, Australian, Irish, New Zealand and South African spelling, although gray remained in common usage in the UK until the second half of the 20th century. Gray has been the preferred American spelling since approximately 1825, although grey is an accepted variant.

Grey or gray is an intermediate color between black and white, a neutral or achromatic color, meaning literally a color "without color." It is the color of a cloud-covered sky, of ash and of lead. Grey comes from the Middle English grai or grei, from the Anglo-Saxon graeg, and is related to the German grau.

In antiquity and the Middle Ages, grey was the color of undyed wool, and thus was the color most commonly worn by peasants and the poor. It was also the color worn by monks of the Franciscan order, Cistercian Order and the Capucine Order as a symbol of their vows of humility and poverty. Franciscan monks in England and Scotland were commonly known as the Grey friars, and that name is now attached to many places in Great Britain.