Gravity is the invisible force that pulls everything down toward the ground. The force of gravity, defy gravity, zero gravity.
Everything with mass attracts everything else, and the earth wins only because it is so large — the same law holds the moon and the planets. Astronauts are not beyond gravity but falling around the earth continuously. The other sense is seriousness: the gravity of the situation. Note that the Latin means heaviness.
1noungravityThe force that pulls things towards each other.
“Gravity is what makes an apple fall from the tree to the ground.”
2nounseriousnessSeriousness.
“The children didn't understand the gravity of the situation and kept laughing.”
gravity is a force, or seriousness.
GRAVity → the earth GRABs it, because it is heavy
From the Latin for heavy: it is what makes the earth grab a stone and pull it straight down, and the same word for a face so serious that nobody laughs.
hooks ontograb
Latin gravitas means heaviness or seriousness, from gravis, heavy. Grave, grief and aggravate come from the same weight.
French
gravité
English, today
gravity
Built from
Borrowed from French gravité. French gravité (“seriousness, solemnity; severity; (physics) gravity”), or from its Latin gravitās (“heaviness, weight; seriousness; severity”), equivalent to grave + -ity. Gravitās is derived from gravis (“heavy; grave, serious”) (ultimately from Proto-Indo-European gʷreh₂- (“heavy”)) + -tās. The English word was first used figuratively, and gained the senses relating to physical qualities in the 17th century. a doublet of gravitas.
Etymology from Wiktionary, CC BY-SA