gratuitous.

1. Not required or justified by the situation, often seeming needlessly added.

2. Provided freely without a charge or payment.

Use it for

Words that belong together

• a gratuitous insult
• gratuitous detail

On the page

The gratuitous insult made reconciliation harder than the original dispute had.

She removed the gratuitous detail because it distracted from the witness’s choice.

Usage notes

Primary category: literary. Forms: Comparative more gratuitous; superlative most gratuitous where gradation is meaningful. Legacy lexical fields mirror sense 1 only. Use numbered sense fields for all meanings.