grievance

Etymology

It is inherited from Middle English grevaunce, also grevance,^[2][3][4] borrowed from Old French grevance,^{[5][6][3][4][7][2]} from grever (“to harm, burden, afflict”),^[5][6][3][8] with the suffix -ance.^[4][5][7] The Anglo-Norman noun, recorded from 1150–70, could mean a burden, distress, injury, hardship or wrong.^[9] The French verb is from Latin gravō (“to make heavy; to cause grief”), from gravis (“weighty”), from Proto-Indo-European *gwere- (“heavy”).^[6] It is related to grieve and grief.^[6][3]

Earliest recorded meaning

The state of being oppressed or distressed; trouble, suffering: before 1300, in the Cursor Mundi.^[5] Etymonline dates the word to about 1300, as "state of being aggrieved".^[6] The MED's earliest quotation, from Arthour and Merlin (about 1330, perhaps composed before 1300), has it in the sense of injury or harm.^[2]

Semantic evolution

In Middle English the word covered a wide range of harm: an injury or offence done to someone, a state of hardship or misery, a disease or hurt, and displeasure or offence taken.^[2][5] Chaucer used it twenty times and Gower ten.^[10] Most of these senses died out between the 16th and 18th centuries.^[5] The modern sense, a circumstance felt as oppressive and later a wrong regarded as grounds for complaint, is recorded from 1481, in Caxton's Myrrour of the World;^[5] Etymonline dates the use for a cause of such distress to the late 15th century.^[6] Johnson (1755) marked "a state of uneasiness" as out of use and defined the word as a cause of uneasiness arising from human conduct.^[11] In labour law a grievance is also a formal complaint filed by an employee or a union,^[12][13] and in the Australian parliament a grievance debate is a period when members may raise topics of their own choosing.^[14]

Timeline

• before 1300 – trouble, distress, suffering (obsolete by 1597).^[5]
• 1377 – a disease, ailment or hurt, in Piers Plowman (obsolete by 1761).^[5]
• c. 1380 – displeasure, offence (obsolete by 1523).^[5]
• c. 1386 – the infliction of wrong or hardship, injury, in Chaucer (obsolete by 1768).^[5]
• 1481 – a circumstance felt to be oppressive; a wrong that gives grounds for complaint.^[5]

Meanings

Noun

1. A real or imagined wrong or hardship that is felt to be grounds for complaint: The tenants listed their grievances at the meeting.^{[4][5][14][12]}
2. A feeling of resentment at being unfairly treated: He has nursed a grievance against his old school for years.^[4][1]
3. A formal complaint, especially one made by an employee or a union about working conditions.^[13][12]
4. (obsolete) Suffering, distress.^[13][5][15]
5. (obsolete) Injury or harm done to someone.^[5][15][2]

Word family

• pregrievance

Related words

• grieve
• grief
• grievous
• aggrieve
• gravity

References

1. ^ a b Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ a b c d e Kurath, Hans; Kuhn, Sherman M.; Lewis, Robert E., eds. (1952–2001), Middle English Dictionary, Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press; online edition ed. Frances McSparran et al. (2000–2018)
3. ^ a b c d The American Heritage Dictionary of the English Language (online 2024), 5th ed., Boston: Houghton Mifflin Harcourt
4. ^ a b c d e Merriam-Webster Unabridged Dictionary (2024), online ed., Springfield, Mass.: Merriam-Webster
5. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l m n o Oxford English Dictionary Online (accessed March 2026), Oxford: Oxford University Press
6. ^ a b c d e f Harper, Douglas. Online Etymology Dictionary, https://www.etymonline.com
7. ^ a b Klein, Ernest. A Comprehensive Etymological Dictionary of the English Language. 2 vols. Amsterdam: Elsevier, 1966–1967.
8. ^ Stevenson, Angus, ed. (2010), Oxford Dictionary of English, 3rd ed., Oxford: Oxford University Press
9. ^ Anglo-Norman Dictionary (AND2), Aberystwyth University, anglo-norman.net (2nd ed., 2005–)
10. ^ Benson, Larry D., Glossarial Concordance to Middle English (Chaucer, Gower), Johns Hopkins University, github.com/jhu-digital-manuscripts/gcme
11. ^ Johnson, Samuel (1755), A Dictionary of the English Language, London; 4th ed. 1773; Johnson's Dictionary Online, ed. Beth Rapp Young et al.
12. ^ a b c Garner, Bryan A., ed. (2004), Black's Law Dictionary, 8th ed., St. Paul, Minn.: Thomson West
13. ^ a b c Merriam-Webster's Collegiate Dictionary (2003), 11th ed., Springfield, Mass.: Merriam-Webster
14. ^ a b Moore, Bruce, ed. (2004), The Australian Oxford Dictionary, 2nd ed., Melbourne: Oxford University Press
15. ^ a b Shorter Oxford English Dictionary on Historical Principles (2002), 5th ed., ed. William R. Trumble and Angus Stevenson, Oxford: Oxford University Press