Leicht grau in der Farbe.
Slightly grey in color.
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See how the word “gräulich” is used in sentences
Der Himmel nahm ein gräuliches Blau an. — The sky turned a greyish blue.
Warum ist das Wasser im Teich so gräulich? — Why is the water in the pond so greyish?
Er trug eine gräuliche Jacke, die bessere Tage gesehen hatte. — He wore a greyish jacket that had seen better days.
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words — the estimated size of your passive German vocabulary
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Download the app for free German vocabulary testGräulich is built with -lich, the German suffix for “-ish” in colours: bläulich, rötlich, grünlich. The pattern is as productive as the English one but narrower — German does not use it for times or ages, so there is nothing like sevenish or fortyish.
Watch the umlaut: gräulich with ä means greyish, and greulich without it is an older spelling of gräulich meaning dreadful, from Grauen, horror. The two collapsed in the spelling reform and are now both written gräulich, which German dictionaries flag as genuinely confusing.
grau grey
The colour itself. Gräulich only approaches it.
gräulich dreadful — the other word
From Grauen, horror. Spelling reform merged the two, and context is now the only guide.
ergraut gone grey
Of hair. Gräuliches Haar would suggest dirty hair, not age.
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