grey zonegray zonen.
/ˈɡreɪ ˌzəʊn/, U.S. /ˈɡreɪ ˌzoʊn/ An intermediate area between two opposing positions; a situation, subject, etc., not clearly or easily defined, or not covered by an existing category or set of rules; = grey area n. 1.
ΘΚΠ
the world > space > relative position > condition or fact of being interjacent > [noun] > that which is interjacent
meana1400
moyen1483
umpire1605
intermedium1611
intermediate1650
middle1665
between-lier1674
borderland1821
border-ground1871
border-world1878
grey zone1900
twilight zone1909
grey area1935
1900 Rep. Comm. Twelve of Mod. Land. Assoc. of Amer. iii. 15 Between them [sc. the students] lies a broad gray zone, the region of ‘not quite correct’ and ‘not altogether bad’.
1931 N.Y. Times 9 Jan. 25/4 There is a twilight area of crime—inhabited by the bootlegger, the professional gambler, the racketeer, the blackmailer—which may be called the gray zone. It rests between the white zone—the law-abiding people—and the black zone, whose members are the ruthless murderers and desperadoes.
1959 Polit. Sci. Q. 74 442 The clash of opposing interests is seldom a clear case of right and wrong, but rather falls in the grey zone of different degrees and kinds of rightness.
1979 J. Hicks Causality in Econ. viii. 113 Why should it not be the case that there are two values, outside of which probabilities are clear, while there is a grey zone, within which they are unclear, in between?
2012 Irish Times (Nexis) 17 Nov. 3 The combination of the State's refusal to record abortions and the ideological insistence that some abortions are not abortions confines the subject to a grey zone.
This is a new entry (OED Third Edition, September 2013; most recently modified version published online March 2022).
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n.1900