Etymology
Learned borrowing from Latin gravitās (weight) (compare French gravité), from gravis (heavy). Doublet of gravitas. First attested in the sixteenth century.
Noun
gravity (countable and uncountable, plural gravities)
- The state or condition of having weight; heaviness.
- The state or condition of being grave; seriousness.
- I hope you understand the gravity of the situation.
- (music) The lowness of a note.
- (physics) The force at the Earth's surface, of the attraction by the Earth's masses, and the centrifugal pseudo-force caused by the Earth's rotation, resulting from gravitation.
- (loosely, see usage notes) Gravitation, the universal force exercised by two bodies onto each other.
- (physics) Specific gravity.
- The moon's gravity is smaller than that of Earth.
Usage notes
In the physics sense gravity and gravitation are sometimes used interchangeably in casual discussion.
Derived terms
- acceleration of gravity
- anti-gravity
- center of gravity
- gravitation
- graviton
- microgravity
- quantum gravity
- standard gravity
- zero gravity
Credits
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