gravitas
Americannoun
noun
Etymology
Origin of gravitas
First recorded in 1920–25; from Latin gravitās; see gravity
Explanation
Gravitas is seriousness and dignity. You might try to speak with gravitas, but no one will take you seriously if you're wearing clown makeup and giant floppy shoes. Gravitas is a Latin word that means "weight or heaviness." It came to mean a figurative weight after gravity acquired a primarily scientific meaning. A biography of Abraham Lincoln will inevitably be full of gravitas, and places like libraries, museums, and university buildings seem to have gravitas, or dignity — while grocery stores and gyms usually do not.
Vocabulary lists containing gravitas
Olympics Vocabulary for Champions
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Good Grief!: Grav, Griev
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Foreign Words and Phrases Commonly Used in English, List 2
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Example Sentences
Examples are provided to illustrate real-world usage of words in context. Any opinions expressed do not reflect the views of Dictionary.com.
But Stewart’s gravitas, honed over many years of British stage performance, made Picard the show’s gravitational center, and he was proud of that.
From Salon ● Oct. 30, 2026
"For more than 25 years, he brought a gravitas and profundity to the role, earning fans across the globe and helping to transform Super Hero storytelling forever," Marvel Studios said Thursday.
From Barron's ● Oct. 29, 2026
He has abandoned his forebears’ gravitas to create a dynamic, exuberantly expressive sculptural language.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Oct. 21, 2026
Warsh is likely to face pushback to this approach, as he comes into his first testimony having none of the gravitas of Volcker or Greenspan, Spindel said.
From MarketWatch ● Jul. 11, 2026
There had been larger marches in the past decade, but none of them matched in tone, the gravitas of this slow cortege through the streets of Durham.
From "The Best of Enemies" by Osha Gray Davidson
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Get a wordDefinitions and idiom definitions from Dictionary.com Unabridged, based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2023
Idioms from The American Heritage® Idioms Dictionary copyright © 2002, 2001, 1995 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company.
