gravamen
/ɡɹəˈveɪmɛn/
"gravamen" is a 8-letter English headword indexed on PlainSpell.
The verdict
“gravamen” is uncommon English (outside the top frequency list), classed as a noun. The kind of spelling people second-guess.
- Unranked
- below top-frequency English
- 8
- letters
According to Wiktionary data (CC BY-SA, analyzed September 3, 2026) - A grievance complained of.
Corpus desk
Index EN-gravamen · gravamen · English
gravamen · unranked · 0 variants · 0 confusables
- FREQ-UNRANKED Unranked
- LEN-LONG 8 letters
- VOW-3 3 vowels
- CONFUS-0 No pairs
- VAR-0 0 variants
- BOOK-THIN "G" thin
- PHOTO-UNK Peer pending
Read with this headword: Spelling guide for this pattern
Desk codes from Wiktionary headword shape, FrequencyWords rank tier, confusable-pair count, generated misspelling depth, letter-cohort book size, and photo-finish peer. Not a difficulty grade.
| Property | Value |
|---|---|
| Headword | gravamen |
| Language | English |
| Part of speech | Noun |
| IPA | /ɡɹəˈveɪmɛn/ |
| Letters | 8 |
| Misspellings tracked | 0 |
| Confusable pairs | 0 |
| Source | Wiktionary (kaikki.org) |
Long-tail rank of “gravamen” in English
Rare enough to double-check
gravamen is uncommon English outside the top frequency list, classed as anoun, transcribed /ɡɹəˈveɪmɛn/. Rarity is why readers land here mid-draft. 5 senses are on record.
Our edit-distance generator produced no likely misspellings for gravamen, typically a sign the spelling maps closely to how the word sounds. Our dataset records no confusable match here, since nothing in our dataset looks or sounds close enough to cause mix-ups.
Etymologically, the entry records: 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, … The correct English form is gravamen, spelled G-R-A-V-A-M-E-N.
Definition
- 1A grievance complained of.
- 2A grievance complained of.
- 3The essence or ground of a complaint.
- 4The essence or most important aspect of a piece of writing, a point of argument, etc.; the gist.
- 5A formal charge or complaint.
Recorded use
Wiktionary examplesThese source excerpts show how gravamen appears in context. They illustrate usage; the definition above remains the entry’s reference meaning.
They have brought in two Papers, they ſay, in the nature of a Gravamen. I take it to be a Gravamen, and of ill conſequence for the time to come, when we have liberty to give in Reaſons to the Houſes, that they ſhould in writing give in Gravamen's to us.
Let there be a tranſpoſition of the words, mercy for truth, in theſe two gravamens, and then ſee whether the ſubject matter be not the very ſame. I muſt therefore deſire the Reader to receive ſatisfaction unto this, from that before written, which howſoever calculated for the meridian of mercy, yet may generally ſerve as an Antidote againſt all his Gravam…
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.
Definitions, pronunciation, and etymology for this entry are drawn from Wiktionary via the kaikki.org structured extract (CC BY-SA). See the methodology for how each field is sourced and updated.