Gainsboro

adj, noun

adj, noun ·3 syllables ·Rare ·Advanced level

Definitions

Noun
  1. 1
    A neutral light grey colour. uncountable

    "By using light gray or Gainsboro we are using Edward Tufte's principle of "minimum effective difference" to put in ancillary information."

Adjective
  1. 1
    Of a neutral light grey colour. not-comparable

Example

More examples

"By using light gray or Gainsboro we are using Edward Tufte's principle of "minimum effective difference" to put in ancillary information."

Etymology

A color named "gainsboro" was added to the X11 color chart by Paul Raveling in 1989. Raveling explained that he introduced a number of "light and off-white colors, copied from several Sinclair Paints color samples", of which gainsboro appears to be one.

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Data sourced from Wiktionary, WordNet, CMU, and other open linguistic databases. Updated March 2026.