arbitrary — English Dictionary

Adjective

1. Based on individual discretion or judgment; not based on any objective distinction, perhaps even made at random.

   Usage

   • usually
   • of a decision

   Examples

   Benjamin Franklin's designation of "positive" and "negative" to different charges was arbitrary.

   The decision to use 18 years as the legal age of adulthood was arbitrary, as both age 17 and 19 were reasonable alternatives.

2. Determined by impulse rather than reason; often connoting heavy-handedness.

   Examples

   More examples (1)

   1937/1938, Albert Einstein, letter to Max Born The Russian trials were Stalin's purges, with which he attempted to consolidate his power. Like most people in the West, I believed these show trials to be the arbitrary acts of a cruel dictator.

   The bromide conforms to everything sanctioned by the majority, and may be depended upon to be trite, banal, and arbitrary.

3. Any, out of all that are possible.

   Examples

   The equation is true for an arbitrary value of x.

4. Determined by independent arbiter.

5. Not representative or symbolic; not iconic.

Noun

1. Anything arbitrary, such as an arithmetical value or a fee.

   Examples

   More examples (1)

   And in this long chain of consistence, a chain stretching from the long dead to the far unborn, the notion of the arbitrary could only survive as the notion of a pre-established arbitrary.

Adjective

1. based on or subject to individual discretion or preference or sometimes impulse or caprice

   Antonyms

   nonarbitrary

   Examples

   an arbitrary decision

   the arbitrary rule of a dictator

   More examples (4)

   an arbitrary penalty

   of arbitrary size and shape

   an arbitrary choice

   arbitrary division of the group into halves