gray matter

noun

1. Anatomy. nerve tissue, especially of the brain and spinal cord, that contains fibers and nerve cell bodies and is dark reddish-gray. Compare white matter.
2. Informal. brains or intellect.

gray matter

1. The brownish-gray tissue of the vertebrate brain and spinal cord, made up chiefly of the cell bodies and dendrites of neurons.
2. Compare white matter

Word History and Origins

Origin of gray matter¹

First recorded in 1830–40

Idioms and Phrases

Brains, intellect, as in If you'd only use your gray matter, you'd see the answer in a minute . This expression refers to actual brain tissue that is gray in color. Agatha Christie's fictional detective, Hercule Poirot, constantly alludes to using the little gray cells for solving a crime. [Late 1800s]

Example Sentences

He also worked on research in 2015 showing that people who are frequent lucid dreamers have more gray matter located in the frontal polar cortices.

From MIT Technology Review

My earliest memoryis throwing clumps of gray matter intothe Mediterranean then waiting forsomething solid to come back.

From MIT Technology Review

No issue on the mind would be complete without a chance to gaze upon the gray matter itself, and there are brains aplenty in our haunting photo essay documenting a library of malformed specimens.

From MIT Technology Review

The mother-daughter relationship may be especially influential, with a neuroimaging study from Yale University showing extra gray matter in the brains of moms who reported having warm relationships with their own mothers.

From Washington Post

In these voids, MRI brain imaging shows a collaborative patchwork of gray matter called the default mode network takes control.

From Popular-Science

“In general, gray matter shrinkage may have no impact,” says Dr. Nicole Prause of University of California, Los Angeles.

From The Daily Beast

Smaller volumes of gray matter may not themselves even be cause for concern.

From The Daily Beast

The co-founders of Gray Matter, the pharmaceutical company he invented and was then elbowed out of.

From The Daily Beast

The demented legislation that passed recently emerged from the mysterious gray matter of Mike Lee, the Utah senator.

From The Daily Beast

That three-pound lump of gray matter contains 100 billion neurons and 100 trillion synapses, or connections.

From The Daily Beast

It is composed of a mass of gray matter surrounded by a covering of white matter.

From Project Gutenberg

If the ego be but the passing shadow of the material brain, at the disintegration of the gray matter what will become of us?

From Project Gutenberg

Acts principally by reducing excitability of gray matter of brain.

From Project Gutenberg

And that shows that you have more gray matter than some of your colleagues.

From Project Gutenberg

If I had any gray matter I could probably work out the facts.

From Project Gutenberg