MEANING
1. Without a determining reason or rule, as through chance, personal choice, or convenience.
2. By exercising personal power without fair regard for relevant rules, rights, or circumstances.
Use it for
questioning a threshold selected without justification; identifying a choice that does not follow from the theory; distinguishing a convenient convention from a necessary conclusionDistinguishes a choice lacking a determining rationale from a decision that unfairly exercises power. Academic functions: Qualification / Uncertainty, Evaluation, Methodology.
Words that belong together
- arbitrarily chosen
- arbitrarily selected
- arbitrarily defined
On the page
The categories should not be arbitrarily defined if the proposed distinction carries theoretical weight.
Choosing a baseline arbitrarily is acceptable only when the comparison does not depend on that choice.
The review asks whether applicants were arbitrarily denied access rather than assessed under consistent criteria.
A policy can permit discretion without authorizing officials to act arbitrarily.
Nearby words
Word forms
- Base
- arbitrarily
Usage notes
Modifies verbs, participles or adjectives. No ordinary comparative or superlative form. Arbitrarily chosen need not mean chosen by a formal random-sampling procedure. Register: formal. Commonness: moderately common (qualitative editorial estimate, informed by dictionaries/corpus).
Practice this word in a sentenceYour margin notes
Keep a thought for later. Sign in to save privately.