gravity

英文词源

gravity

gravity: [16] Gravity comes from Latin gravitās, a derivative of the adjective gravis ‘heavy, important’. This in turn goes back to a prehistoric Indo-European *gru-, which also produced Greek bárus ‘heavy’ (source of English baritone [19] and barium [19]), Sanskrit gurús ‘heavy, dignified’ (whence English guru [17]), Latin brūtus ‘heavy’, hence ‘cumbersome, stupid’ (from which English gets brute), Gothic kaurus ‘heavy’, and Latvian grūts ‘heavy, pregnant’.

English descendants of gravis, apart from gravity, include grave ‘serious’, gravid ‘pregnant’ [16], gravitate [17], grief, and grudge.
=> baritone, barium, brute, grave, grief, grudge, guru

gravity (n.)

c. 1500, "weight, dignity, seriousness, solemnity of deportment or character, importance," from Old French gravité "seriousness, thoughtfulness" (13c.) and directly from Latin gravitatem (nominative gravitas) "weight, heaviness, pressure," from gravis "heavy" (see grave (adj.)). The scientific sense of "downward acceleration of terrestrial bodies due to gravitation of the Earth" first recorded 1620s.

The words gravity and gravitation have been more or less confounded; but the most careful writers use gravitation for the attracting force, and gravity for the terrestrial phenomenon of weight or downward acceleration which has for its two components the gravitation and the centrifugal force. [Century Dictionary, 1902]