I could say word of the day, but I’m only going to do this when I am caught off guard by unique vocabulary and cannot even infer meaning based on the context of a sentence. I.e. not very often (not to toot my own reading comprehension horn or anything☺).
gra·va·men
grəˈvāmən
noun
Law
noun: gravamen; plural noun: gravamina
1.
the essence or most serious part of a complaint or accusation.
1 Comment
I know just what you mean, I’m always surprised to come across a word I just plain flat haven’t heard before and can’t even puzzle out by context! Not that there aren’t tons of words I don’t know the meaning of, but it feels like usually I’ve at least SEEN them!
Gravamen is a good one…now to find an opportunity to use it. I can just imagine trotting it out the next time I’m called over to HR because my crazy coworker has been complaining about me again —
“Ah, yes…*adjusts spectacles* and what, pray tell, is the gravamen of her accusation against me?”
*room falls silent in awe, I win*