Unrestricted; despotic

Usage examples of arbitrary.

On the accession of Claudius, an old woman threw herself at his feet, and complained that a general of the late emperor had obtained an arbitrary grant of her patrimony.

For similar reasons, the requirements, without excluding other evidence, of a chemical analysis as a condition precedent to a suit to recover damages resulting to crops from allegedly deficient fertilizers is not deemed to be arbitrary or unreasonable.

We hold the Arkite theory to be arbitrary in general, unsupported by proofs, and inconsistent in detail, unable to meet the points presented.

He was, indeed, while President, violently denounced by the opposition as a tyrant and a usurper, for having gone beyond his constitutional powers in authorizing or permitting the temporary suppression of newspapers, and in wantonly suspending the writ of habeas corpus and resorting to arbitrary arrests.

Labouchere added, that the present measure, though avowedly an arbitrary one, would, after all, only place Jamaica on the same footing with the other crown colonies, who were administered by a governor and council.

The hall at Bowmont, with its arbitrary collection of broadswords, incomprehensible tapestries and a weasel which the Basher had stuffed, but without success, was not a place in which anybody lingered.

But any method for thus combining the bases and acids must be arbitrary and inaccurate.

My desire is to restore them to the blessings of law and liberty, equally enjoyed by every British subject, which they have fatally and desperately exchanged for all the calamities of war, and the arbitrary tyranny of their chiefs.

I had been an unwilling witness of several of these arbitrary and cruel actions, when one day I had the pleasure of seeing the count soundly beaten by two peasants.

He promised his consent to the sale of my commission as soon as he ascertained the abilities of the purchaser, and Major Spiridion happening to make his appearance in the office while I was still there, the secretary ordered him rather angrily, to set my brother at liberty immediately, and cautioned him not to be guilty again of such reprehensible and arbitrary acts.

For there is a providential plan of God, not injected by arbitrary miracle, but inhering in the order of the world, centred in the propulsive heart of humanity, which beats throb by throb along the web of events, removing obstacles and clearing the way for the revelation of the completed pattern.

To subject the press to the restrictive power of a licenser, as was formerly done, both before and since the revolution, is to subject all freedom of sentiment to the prejudices of one man, and make him the arbitrary and infallible judge of all controverted points in learning, religion and government.

The cruel and arbitrary disposition of Constantius, which did not always require the provocations of guilt and resistance, was justly exasperated by the tumults of his capital, and the criminal behavior of a faction, which opposed the authority and religion of their sovereign.

In reading their account of these institutions, we are painfully reminded how much the rising tide of religious liberty has been checked and driven back by the bands of priestcraft and arbitrary power.

The claim that its findings are in general arbitrary and biased is not merely tendentious, but specious.