Entry · catalog no. 2011
gray boy
/ ɡreɪ bɔɪ /GRAY-boy
noun · national · 1940s
✓ Verified
1.
A white man; (as "gray") a white person generally.
“The gray boys who ran the label never set foot in the neighborhoods the music came from.”
Origin & Attribution
Black American in-group slang for a white person — "gray," or "gray boy" for a man — documented in Green's Dictionary of Slang and carried through jazz-era and mid-century Black speech. A conscious counter to white America's own racial naming, turned inward among Black speakers and rarely said across the color line. It sits beside "ofay," "Mister Charlie," and "Miss Ann" in this archive.
early 1900s
In-group Black term for a white person
mid-1900s
Common in jazz-era and urban speech
now
Documented in Green's Dictionary of Slang
Region of origin
West
Midwest
N.East
South
Nationwide
national · 1940s
Spoken by
Black American speakers
$GRAYBOThe Record · cultural traction
▲ Steady96 yrs
ahead of the mainstream
46/100
peak cultural energy
Introduced to English by the culture — logged here before the mainstream caught on.
Cultural usage — the recordMainstream search interest
First used
1930
in the culture
Cultural energy indexed from documented usage, search interest, and citation frequency. The recorded date is the archive’s permanent point of record.
Hear it spoken
By region — how it actually sounds
@auntiereg
Atlanta, GA
@deltasoul
Memphis, TN
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See also