Meaning

A grievance complained of..

Definitions by Sense

1. A grievance complained of.
2. The essence or ground of a complaint.
3. (by extension) The essence or most important aspect of a piece of writing, a point of argument, etc.; the gist.
4. (obsolete) A formal charge or complaint.

Example Sentences

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 Gravamens.

After dinner ſome viſitors came in, and among the reſt two or three lawyers, whom I had ſeen in Guſtrow, and who were like to ſpoil our mirth by introducing their jejune talk of gravamina and appeals. One of them could tell twenty, another thirty, another forty, gravamina on the ſide of the burghers of the province.

Complaints about the burdens of keeping the lord's hunting dogs are found in several lists of gravamens preceding the Peasants' War, and in the Tyrol "There were special levies [on tenant farmers] for the dogs … of the landlord."

In 1239, the bishops presented gravamina to the papal legate detailing 'prejudices of ecclesiastical liberty by the lord king and his bailiffs'.

[P]roperly, no evidence can be read here that was not read below, and if evidence, which ought to have been read there, was rejected, that ought to be the gravamen of the appeal.

A count is sometimes considered as synonymous with a declaration, and this was its original signification in the law-French; but it is now most generally considered as a part of a declaration, wherein the plaintiff sets forth a distinct cause of action; and it frequently contains several counts, in which the plaintiff assigns different gravamens, so that if he fail in the proof of any, and substantiate one only, he may still recover; […]

Falsehood, which was in ordinary cases the gravamen of the complaint, was omitted altogether in the information against him.

Word Forms

• gravamens
• gravamina

Synonyms for gravamen

Related Words

When Should You Use Gravamen?

Use gravamen when its meaning, tone and grammar fit the full sentence. A synonym is not always a direct replacement.

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