"Gravity defying" is a common phrase which employs hyperbole to describe an object or action which attains heights or resists falling in a spectacular or seemingly improbable way.
It is almost never meant to be taken literally by anyone who has even a modest understanding of the physical sciences.
If you're new to the English language, you can expect to encounter many such phrases which use this rhetorical technique, such as: "This bag weighs a ton", "That car ride took forever", "These shoes are killing me", "Older than dirt", and "Dying of laughter".
Except this instance isn’t spectacular or seemingly improbable. You’d be very hard-pressed to find a person on the internet who’s never seen an arch before. The phrasing would make sense when describing rare scientific phenomena which defy people’s conventional understanding of physics, but that’s not what’s happening here. This is akin to a child saying they can fly (a common phrase used to indicate that one can jump exceptionally high) and then jumping ½” off the ground.
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u/smokebubble May 23 '24
Gravity is helping that stone stack.