The Collaborative International Dictionary
Gratuitous \Gra*tu"i*tous\a. [L. gratuitus, from gratus pleasing. See Grate, a., Gratis.]
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Given without an equivalent or recompense; conferred without valuable consideration; granted without pay, or without claim or merit; not required by justice.
We mistake the gratuitous blessings of Heaven for the fruits of our own industry.
--L'Estrange. -
Not called for by the circumstances; without reason, cause, or proof; adopted or asserted without any good ground; as, a gratuitous assumption.
Acts of gratuitous self-humiliation.
--De Quincye. -- Gra*tu"i*tous*ly, adv. -- Gra*tu"i*tous*ness, n.
Douglas Harper's Etymology Dictionary
1690s, from gratuitous + -ly (2).
Wiktionary
adv. 1 freely; in the manner of a gift, without being earned. 2 In a manner not demanded by the circumstances, without reason, justification, cause, or proof.
WordNet
adv. in an uncalled-for manner; "he insulted us gratuitously"
Usage examples of "gratuitously".
Our euphuists may pass away like those of the Elizabethan era, or, like the best of them, live in spite of faults with which they were gratuitously trammelled.
Now we do not read that Christ made use of these gratuitously given graces, especially as regards the gift of tongues.
When they yielded none the more, in spite of his giving to each man gratuitously his own kin, he erected a kind of salesroom in a safe spot under the very wall, where he led each one of the prominent men past and auctioned him off, to see if by this means at least he could gain the Patareans.
The local Rajneesh building company instead lost a major contract, and one sannyasin was gratuitously assaulted.
Not seeing why a set of bonafide officers should gratuitously murder a chauffeur, I had been wondering whether the quartet might not be impostors, tricked out in uniforms to which they had no claim.
He therefore sent the Tractors gratuitously to many clergymen, accompanied with a formal certificate that the holder had become entitled to their possession by the payment of five guineas.
Carnot, who, as a good Frenchman, is not desirous of gratuitously increasing the embarrassments of France nor of taking more than France could usefully and surely keep.