Grievance Meaning
/ˈɡɹiː.vəns/Definition, CEFR level C1, pronunciation, examples, and quiz.
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Definition
nounSomething which causes grief.
nounA wrong or hardship suffered, which is the grounds of a complaint.
Sentence Examples
Have you filed a grievance?
I have a grievance about that. I believe it was unfair.
CEFR Practice Quiz
The employee filed a formal ____ about unfair working conditions.
CEFR Practice Quiz (Alternate)
The employee filed a formal ____ with the human resources department regarding his unfair treatment.
Word Origin & History
From Old French grievance, from the verb grever (“to irritate; to bother; to annoy”) + -ance, equivalent to grieve + -ance.
Literary Quotations & Historical Citations
"[T]he King is vveary / Of daintie and ſuch picking greeuances, / For he hath found, to end one doubt by death, / Reuiues tvvo greater in the heires of life: […]"
— c. 1596–1599 (date written), William Shakespeare, The Second Part of Henrie the Fourth, […], quarto edition, London: […] V[alentine] S[immes] for Andrew Wise, and William Aspley, published 1600, →OCLC, [Act IV, scene i], signature G, verso:
"Throughout the 1500s, the populace roiled over a constellation of grievances of which the forest emerged as a key focal point. The popular late Middle Ages fictional character Robin Hood, dressed in green to symbolize the forest, dodged fines for forest offenses and stole from the rich to give to the poor. But his appeal was painfully real and embodied the struggle over wood."
— 2006, Edwin Black, chapter 2, in Internal Combustion:
"The issues of harassment and/or bullying was the top common source of grievance, followed by discipline, and then new working practices."
— 2005, John Gennard, Graham Judge, Employee Relations, →ISBN, page 303:
"Given the non-significance of grievance in the estimated results, I proceeded to check whether the data provide a systematic and rational explanation of personal grievance among the population."
— 2007, Aderoju Oyefusi, Oil and the Propensity to Armed Struggle in the Niger Delta Region of Nigeria:
"The left half of the equation draws on grievance while the liberal half is sustained by guilt, and as such they enjoy a symbiotic relationship: the more grievance the left can generate, the more guilt the liberal will feel, and the more guilt the liberal feels, the more grievance the left are able to generate."
— 2008, Andrew Anthony, The Fallout: How a Guilty Liberal Lost His Innocence, →ISBN, page 21:
Explore More C1 Vocabulary Words
CEFR Practice Quiz
The employee filed a formal ____ about unfair working conditions.
CEFR Practice Quiz (Alternate)
The employee filed a formal ____ with the human resources department regarding his unfair treatment.