graviter

Graviter is the adverb of gravis, grave, formed with the -iter suffix that third declension adjectives take. Comparative gravius, superlative gravissime.

Three lines of sense run out of the adjective and all three are live. Physically, heavily: a stone falls graviter. In degree, seriously or severely: graviter aeger, gravely ill; graviter vulneratus, badly wounded. In manner, with weight and dignity: "graviter dicere" is to speak impressively, not loudly, and mistaking that for volume gets Roman oratory badly wrong. The idiom to memorise is "graviter ferre", to take something badly, whose opposite is "aequo animo ferre", to take it calmly. The corpus form grauiter is the ordinary medieval u for v, not a variant word.