gravity
Language: English
Part of speech: noun
Pronunciation: ipa: /ˈɡɹævɪti/
rhymes: -ævɪti
Forms: form: gravities
Etymology: Learned borrowing from Latin gravitās (“weight”) (compare French gravité), from gravis (“heavy”). Doublet of gravitas. First attested in the 16th century.
Senses: synonyms: weightfulness
glosses: The state or condition of having weight; weight; heaviness.
examples: text: I hope you appreciate the gravity of the situation.
text: The gravity of the situation which confronts the world today necessitates my appearance before a joint session of the Congress. The foreign policy and the national security of this country are involved.
ref: 1947 March 12, Harry S. Truman, 1:05 from the start, in MP72-14 Excerpt - Truman Doctrine Speech, Harry S. Truman Presidential Library and Museum, National Archives Identifier: 595162:
text: Since I believe that abortion is absolutely wrong I must choose the course that minimizes the support of it. The gravity of this issue is so great that I must consider my job expendable.
ref: 1990 E.E.O.C. v. University of Detroit, 904 F.2d 331
text: Could the month's poor performance in these two sectors reveal the true gravity of the labor market's woes?
ref: 2011 September 3, Daniel Indiviglio, “August's Big Reversal for Manufacturing and Retail Jobs”, in The Atlantic:
synonyms: graveness
seriousness
glosses: The state or condition of being grave; seriousness.
topics: entertainment
lifestyle
music
glosses: The lowness of a note.
examples: text: Do you know that gravity is pulling at you, tugging at you, trying to drag you down, from the moment you awake in the morning till you tumble into bed at night?
ref: 1950 January, Howard Hayes, “You and Gravity”, in The Atlantic:
text: It is tempting to speculate about the incentives or compulsions that might explain why anyone would take to the skies in [the] basket [of a balloon]: perhaps out of a desire to escape the gravity of this world or to get a preview of the next[…].
ref: 2013 June 7, David Simpson, “Fantasy of navigation”, in The Guardian Weekly, volume 188, number 26, page 36:
topics: natural-sciences
physical-sciences
physics
glosses: The phenomenon that, on earth, objects have weight; the similar phenomenon on other celestial bodies such as the moon.
glosses: Gravitation, the universal force exercised by two bodies on each other by virtue of their masses.
examples: text: Some of the most beautiful and thus appealing physical theories, including quantum electrodynamics and quantum gravity, have been dogged for decades by infinities that erupt when theorists try to prod their calculations into new domains. Getting rid of these nagging infinities has probably occupied far more effort than was spent in originating the theories.
ref: 2012 January, Michael Riordan, “Tackling Infinity”, in American Scientist, volume 100, number 1, archived from the original on 26 Jan 2012, page 86:
topics: natural-sciences
physical-sciences
physics
glosses: A law or laws of gravitation: any theory which attempts to account for the phenomena of weight and/or the mutual attraction of massive objects (Aristotelian gravity, Newtonian gravity).
topics: natural-sciences
physical-sciences
physics
glosses: Specific gravity.
Derived terms: acceleration of gravity
aerogravity
anti-gravity
anti-gravity lean
API gravity
bigravity
center of gravity
contragravity
countergravity
electrogravity
gravital
gravitation
gravitic
gravitics
gravitied
graviton
gravity assist
gravity bong
gravity boots
gravity brightened
gravity brightening
gravity-brightening
gravity cell
gravity dam
gravity-darkened
gravity-darkening
gravity darkening
gravity drag
gravity drop
gravity gun
gravity hill
gravity knife
gravityless
gravity meter
gravity racer
gravity slingshot
gravity sport
gravity's pull
gravity suit
gravity train
gravity turn
gravity wave
gravity well
gravity wind
hypergravity
hypogravity
infragravity
isogravity
loop quantum gravity
microgravity
milligravity
nongravity
normogravity
paragravity
pseudogravity
quantum gravity
specific gravity bottle
standard gravity
supergravity
surface gravity
ungravity
zero gravity