25 March 2015

arbitrary

[ahr-bi-trer-ee]

adjective
1. subject to individual will or judgment without restriction; contingent solely upon one’s discretion:
an arbitrary decision.
2. decided by a judge or arbiter rather than by a law or statute.
3. having unlimited power; uncontrolled or unrestricted by law; despotic; tyrannical:
an arbitrary government.
4. capricious; unreasonable; unsupported:
an arbitrary demand for payment.
5. Mathematics. undetermined; not assigned a specific value:
an arbitrary constant.
noun, plural arbitraries.
6. arbitraries, Printing. (in Britain) peculiar (def 9).

Origin
late Middle English Latin
1400-1450; late Middle English < Latin arbitrārius uncertain (i.e., depending on an arbiter’s decision). See arbiter, -ary

Related forms
arbitrarily [ahr-bi-trer-uh-lee, ahr-bi-trair-], adverb
arbitrariness, noun
nonarbitrarily, adverb
nonarbitrariness, noun
nonarbitrary, adjective

Dictionary.com

Examples from the web for arbitrary
– We just need something less arbitrary than a coin flip.
– The result is an overly complicated and somewhat arbitrary system, but still much better than nothing.
– The result is that rents are completely arbitrary.

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— Benjamin Franklin

On this day

25 March 1947 – birth of Elton John (Reginald Dwight), British singer-songwriter.

25 March 1957 – the Treaty of Rome is signed by France, West Germany, Holland, Belgium, Italy and Luxembourg, establishing the European Economic Community (EEC). In 1993, following the ratification of the Maastricht Treaty, the EEC became known as the European Community (EC).