graystone

English edit

gray +‎ stone

graystone (countable and uncountable, plural graystones)

(uncountable) A type of gray volcanic rock, typically containing feldspar and iron.
(uncountable, attributive) Any type of gray stone, such as limestone, used in building.
- 1949 January and February, F. G. Roe, “I Saw Three Englands–1”, in Railway Magazine, page 12:
  I certainly was not prepared for the cosy nestling valleys that snuggled against the shoulders of the hills; a land where the graystone cottages and farmsteads still prevailed, but where they had taken on something of the softness of their kind in Gloucester and the Cotswolds, and seemed almost like growths of the soil; […] .
- 2009 January 4, “Letters: Mr. Obama’s Neighborhood”, in New York Times‎^[1]:
  Founded almost 50 years ago, it's an imposing graystone structure (formerly a park district office).
(countable, by extension) A building of this kind.
- 2017, Terry Moor, Reinventing an Urban Vernacular:
  Because graystones were more expensive to build than frame buildings and had a more substantial look and feel, they were the choice of the middle and upper classes.