gravamen

Merriam-Webster's Word of the Day for April 23, 2023 is: gravamen \gruh-VAY-mun\ noun

Gravamen is a formal word that refers to the significant part of a complaint or grievance.

// The gravamen of Walter’s letter to the editor was that the newspaper frequently reports on the school system's failures but rarely covers its successes and improvements.

[See the entry >](https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/gravamen)

Examples:

“The only thing worse than living under a totalitarian Communist regime is outliving one. That seems to be the half-serious gravamen of ‘The Interim,’ a novel published in 2000 by the East German writer Wolfgang Hilbig (1941-2007) and now translated into supple, vivid English by Isabel Fargo Cole. It’s not a completely absurd grievance. Not everyone does well with the kind of freedom afforded by the free market.” — Caleb Crain, The New York Times, 2 Nov. 2021

Did you know?

Gravamen is not a word you hear every day (even rarer is gravamina, the less expected of its two plural forms; gravamens is the other), but it does show up occasionally in modern-day publications. It comes from the Latin verb gravare, meaning “to burden,” and ultimately from the Latin adjective gravis, meaning “heavy.” Fittingly, gravamen refers to the part of a grievance or complaint that gives it weight or substance. In legal contexts, gravamen is used to refer to the grounds on which a legal action is allowed or upheld as valid. (The word is synonymous with a legal use of [gist](https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/gist#legalDictionary) not found outside technical contexts). Gravis has given English several other heavy words that throw their weight around more frequently, including [gravity](https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/gravity), [grieve](https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/grieve), and the adjective [grave](https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/grave#h2), meaning “important” or “serious.”