graying

adjective

gray·​ing ˈgrā-iŋ 

variants or less commonly greying

1

: becoming gray or dull in color

His … hat thumbed back to show a wide brow and a bristle of graying hair.

—Helen MacInnes

Other objects had been mounted according to kind on graying scraps of plywood, which leaned about the room—against bookshelves, in corners—like canvases about a painter's studio.

—Donovan Hohn

2

: having hair that is becoming gray : becoming older

Through heavy promotion and advertising directed at a graying population, the nutritious elixir has become a blockbuster seller …

—Michael J. McCarthy

As I wait to pay the cashier, secure in her glass booth, I glance back over the starkly lit room, the graying waiters, the regulars hunched over stacks of hotcakes.

—Javier Cabral

Examples of graying in a Sentence

Recent Examples on the Web

Looking at your parents’ and grandparents’ heads of hair is probably the best indicator of your own graying timeline. —Sarah Garone, Health, 21 Feb. 2025

Leng was in his early fifties, with a bowl cut of coarse graying hair. —Gideon Lewis-Kraus, The New Yorker, 15 Apr. 2024

Holding the entire assemblage aloft in the graying Vienna morning was a 30-foot pair of collapsible hang glider wings. —Smithsonian Magazine, 17 Aug. 2023

Bornstein’s graying hair was pushed back from his face, his eyes scanning the computer notes through dark-rimmed glasses. —Jessica Bartlett, BostonGlobe.com, 3 June 2023

The dullness makes the one pop of color even more striking: The rainbow flag that hangs outside the home of Kei Okuda, a svelte 62-year-old with a sleek graying ponytail and a bold red lip. —Julia Mio Inuma, Washington Post, 12 Apr. 2023

With its special anti-graying formula, this product is perfect for keeping delicate garments at their brightest and most vibrant. —Amber Smith, Discover Magazine, 4 Apr. 2023

Our teacher was middle-aged and graying and German-born. —Cynthia Ozick, The Atlantic, 3 Aug. 2022

Word History

First Known Use

1796, in the meaning defined at sense 1

Rhymes for graying

• baying
• braying
• faying
• flaying
• fraying
• greying
• haying
• laying
• neighing
• paying
• playing
• praying