Gravitas

[Fred Shapiro]

On Wed, 26 Jul 2000, Elizabeth Gibbens wrote:

> My Random House Webster's says that "gravitas" was first attested in
> U.S. English in the 1920s.

The OED's first use of _gravitas_ is dated 1924.  Here is an earlier one:

1869 _North American Review_ 108: 443  It could not be otherwise, with the
Roman _gravitas_ on one side, and the _Graeca levitas_ on the other.


Fred R. Shapiro                             Coeditor (with Jane Garry)
Associate Librarian for Public Services     TRIAL AND ERROR: AN OXFORD
  and Lecturer in Legal Research            ANTHOLOGY OF LEGAL STORIES
Yale Law School                             Oxford University Press, 1998
e-mail: fred.shapiro at yale.edu               ISBN 0-19-509547-2