gravamen
Meanings
noun
- A grievance complained of.
- A document sent by the Lower House of Convocation to the Upper House to inform the latter of certain grievances in the church.
- The essence or ground of a complaint.
- The essence or most important aspect of a piece of writing, a point of argument, etc.; the gist.
- A formal charge or complaint.
Pronunciation
Word forms
Etymology
Learned borrowing from Late Latin gravāmen (“physical inconvenience”) and Medieval Latin gravāmen (“grievance”), from Latin gravāre + -men (suffix forming neuter nouns of the third declension). Gravāre is the present active infinitive of gravō (“to burden, weigh down; to oppress”), from gravis (“heavy; grave, serious; hard, troublesome”) (ultimately from Proto-Indo-European *gʷreh₂- (“heavy”)) + -ō (suffix forming regular first-conjugation verbs). The plural form gravamina is derived from Late Latin gravāmina.
Synonyms
Translations
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