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What is "arbitrary"

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arbitrary
Longman Dictionary of Contemporary English
arbitrary
adjective
COLLOCATIONS FROM CORPUS
■ ADVERB
apparently
▪ To do this he did not need to make any apparently arbitrary appeal to particular revelation or received authority.
▪ Why not something else equally apparently arbitrary, such as blowing bubbles, or dropping pebbles?
▪ The links between sound, language and meaning can be complex and sometimes apparently arbitrary.
as
▪ Many of the new rules seem as arbitrary as the old familiar ones.
▪ Legislative response to that conviction can not be regarded as arbitrary or capricious and that is all we have to decide.
entirely
▪ He lived so much within his own head that the times at which he ate and slept were entirely arbitrary.
▪ Objects, however, by virtue of their concrete nature, can never possess that entirely arbitrary and abstract capability.
quite
▪ But this reduces the distinction between the national and the comprador bourgeoisie to a quite arbitrary judgement on what constitutes national development.
▪ Catholicism, however gripped the masses by virtue of its incense, its ritual, all quite arbitrary, compulsion without purpose.
▪ Sometimes an action or object has a meaning in this dimension that is quite arbitrary.
▪ The decision as to what to accept as a distinct class is quite arbitrary.
▪ Not having any for fifteen years means I find them quite arbitrary now, impossible to control.
somewhat
▪ The amount by which one changes weights is somewhat arbitrary.
▪ Any judicial act of line-drawing may seem somewhat arbitrary, but Roe was a reasoned statement, elaborated with great care.
▪ This is of course a somewhat arbitrary limitation from a fire protection point of view.
▪ Essentiality is a somewhat arbitrary and relative term when it comes to the food value of treats.
▪ The diversity of services outlined in Figure 8.4 makes any classification somewhat arbitrary.
▪ The inputs employed for simulation are somewhat arbitrary, but they reflect underlying realities.
▪ Some of the ill feeling dates back to the somewhat arbitrary way Edison was first given the charter.
▪ It is however clear that whatever percentage holding is regarded as indicating minority control, the figure selected will be somewhat arbitrary.
■ NOUN
arrest
▪ Non-violent protests outside the jails and the Ministry of the Interior are met with arbitrary arrest.
decision
▪ He infuriated his allies with his arbitrary decisions and devious ways.
▪ They want continuity of policy, not capricious or arbitrary decisions.
▪ No element in glass to rest on my own arbitrary decision alone, he wrote.
▪ Case law has shown that court rulings on these kind of scenarios have resulted in arbitrary decisions.
▪ This effectively enables the Home Office to make arbitrary decisions, deporting people as they see fit, without any independent inquiry.
power
▪ In the absence of any clear division between administrative and judicial functions, even the humblest official enjoyed arbitrary power.
▪ Constitutionalism, therefore, is to be set in contradistinction to arbitrary power.
▪ The Whigs were concerned that the arbitrary power of a prince was being replaced by the arbitrary power of the legislature.
▪ Others, including Stead, attacked the bill for increasing the arbitrary power of the police on the streets.
▪ As a means of assuring us that the management of large public companies do not wield arbitrary power it is unsatisfactory.
▪ Equally, there is an insistence on the need to protect people from the arbitrary power of the state.
▪ Parliament could if it so wishes confer arbitrary powers upon government.
rule
▪ The arbitrary rule restricting profit to a 10% margin applying to service companies would not operate.
▪ Safety is a matter of active attention and alert work practices, not blind obedience to arbitrary rules.
▪ It is so much easier to conform to arbitrary rules imposed by some one else on the basis of age.
▪ The arbitrary rules grated on Wirk, but it was the no-smoking requirement that eventually precipitated her departure from the fellowship.
▪ Torturers kept making up new arbitrary rules, for which they would punish disobedience.
▪ I remember, during arguments with my father, there seemed to be arbitrary rules, which I never understood.
▪ Before, it had justified their arbitrary rule.
way
▪ Instead, the probabilities would have to be assigned in some arbitrary way.
▪ But rain has fallen here, too, in that arbitrary way which makes life so unpredictable.
▪ Some of the ill feeling dates back to the somewhat arbitrary way Edison was first given the charter.
▪ Prisoner after prisoner has complained about the arbitrary way in which the prison regulations are enforced.
▪ Swallowtails, woodpeckers and many other creatures all show how Nature can change in an arbitrary way.
EXAMPLES FROM OTHER ENTRIES
▪ The fans complained about the apparently arbitrary distribution of tickets for the next game.
▪ The government has carried out numerous executions and arbitrary arrests.
▪ The way the programme of events is organized seems completely arbitrary to me.
EXAMPLES FROM CORPUS
▪ But these images were not arbitrary, let alone trivial.
▪ Casinos sound such arbitrary and decadent places; nobody would want their economy's fate to be determined in one.
▪ In the absence of any clear division between administrative and judicial functions, even the humblest official enjoyed arbitrary power.
▪ Throughout the day, repeal supporters argued that the ban on some types of weapons is arbitrary and unconstitutional.
▪ We had to tell the truth, and we were then judged by mysterious, arbitrary standards.
▪ You see that the ornaments we are discussing are nothing if not arbitrary.
The Collaborative International Dictionary
Arbitrary

Arbitrary \Ar"bi*tra*ry\, a. [L. arbitrarius, fr. arbiter: cf. F. arbitraire. See Arbiter.]

  1. Depending on will or discretion; not governed by any fixed rules; as, an arbitrary decision; an arbitrary punishment.

    It was wholly arbitrary in them to do so.
    --Jer. Taylor.

    Rank pretends to fix the value of every one, and is the most arbitrary of all things.
    --Landor.

  2. Exercised according to one's own will or caprice, and therefore conveying a notion of a tendency to abuse the possession of power.

    Arbitrary power is most easily established on the ruins of liberty abused licentiousness.
    --Washington.

  3. Despotic; absolute in power; bound by no law; harsh and unforbearing; tyrannical; as, an arbitrary prince or government.
    --Dryden.

    Arbitrary constant, Arbitrary function (Math.), a quantity of function that is introduced into the solution of a problem, and to which any value or form may at will be given, so that the solution may be made to meet special requirements.

    Arbitrary quantity (Math.), one to which any value can be assigned at pleasure.

Related phrases:
Douglas Harper's Etymology Dictionary
arbitrary

early 15c., "deciding by one's own discretion," from Old French arbitraire (14c.) or directly from Latin arbitrarius "depending on the will, uncertain," from arbiter (see arbiter). The original meaning gradually descended to "capricious" and "despotic" (1640s). Related: Arbitrarily; arbitrariness.

Wiktionary
arbitrary

a. 1 (context usually of a decision English) Based on individual discretion or judgment; not based on any objective distinction, perhaps even made at random. 2 Determined by impulse rather than reason; heavy-handed. 3 (context mathematics English) Any and all possible. 4 Determined by independent arbiter. n. Anything arbitrary, such as an arithmetical value or a fee.

WordNet
arbitrary

adj. based on or subject to individual discretion or preference or sometimes impulse or caprice; "an arbitrary decision"; "the arbitrary rule of a dictator"; "an arbitrary penalty"; "of arbitrary size and shape"; "an arbitrary choice"; "arbitrary division of the group into halves" [ant: nonarbitrary]

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.