Wednesday, August 01, 2012

Word of the Day: greige

geige (adj or n)

A color midway between gray and beige; taupe.
A caucasian man who is attracted to Asian women.

"Longtime readers will be happy to know that Nicki the Cockatiel flourishes along with his fellow housemates: Pookie, the long haired greige and white; Honeybun the petite orange lady cat with the cream-colored paws; and Finnegan, the black long-haired baby of the family."
--Beatrice Small, Private Pleasures

When you want something to fade into the background, you paint it greige, I suppose. I've always had a certain attraction to this color, which is no color. It "goes with anything", as my mom says, though I admit it's a bit boring, like its components, gray and beige. (I had an old girlfriend who used to call the latter "blah beige".) It doesn't make a statement, so you don't have to worry about what anyone thinks of your khaki pants or oatmeal sweater. I don't quite understand the insulting (?) reference to white men preferring Asian women, though. (That definition comes from the Urban Dictionary.) Maybe it's because the women are neither white nor black. A guy can feel cool dating an Asian chick -- not too conventional but not too radical.

Chickens are often greige, aren't they?

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