Definition of "grievousness" [grievousness]

• The quality or state of being grievous (noun)

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• "The grievousness of this you will never understand, my grandsons; for you are yourselves Primitive little savages, unaware of aught else but savagery."
• "Congressional ethics is a lot like sin, falling across an expansive scale of grievousness from the venial (for which a reprimand) to the mortal (eternal expulsion from the House and possibly prison)."
• "People in a position to know said the grievousness of Senator Vitter's sin was not likely to be a major factor."