gravamen
Americannoun
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the part of an accusation that weighs most heavily against the accused; the substantial part of a charge or complaint.
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a grievance.
noun
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law that part of an accusation weighing most heavily against an accused
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law the substance or material grounds of a complaint
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a rare word for grievance
Other Word Forms
Etymology
Origin of gravamen
1595–1605; < Late Latin: trouble, physical inconvenience, equivalent to Latin gravā ( re ) to load, weigh down (derivative of gravis heavy, burdened) + -men noun suffix
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.
"The gravamen of the claimed wrongdoing is that the Laundries exercised their constitutional rights and essentially made no statements to Plaintiffs or law enforcement," the motion states.
From Fox News • Mar. 30, 2022
“The conduct constituting the gravamen of Sachs’s suit plainly occurred abroad,’’ Roberts wrote.
From Washington Post • Dec. 1, 2015
What mattered, Chief Justice Roberts wrote, was the core, or gravamen, of the lawsuit.
From New York Times • Dec. 1, 2015
But are hipsters the gravamen here or victims of circumstances, when steady job prospects are remote and social premium is placed on a good coffee high?
From The Guardian • Sep. 20, 2014
That indeed is the gravamen of my charge: the diabolic ingenuity with which he makes not so much our pleasant vices as our little almost-virtues into whips to scourge us with.
From Punch, or the London Charivari, Volume 152, June 20, 1917 by Seaman, Owen, Sir
Definitions 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.
