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

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