Word
arbitrarily
Phoneticsar·bi·trar·i·ly
US/ˈɑɹbɪˌtɹɛɹəɫi/
UK/ˌɑːbɪtɹˈɛɹəli/
Definitions
01without a logical reason
adv. doing something based on a random choice or a personal whim instead of using a fair system or logic.
adv. in a manner based on random choice or personal whim, rather than any reason or system. Often carries a negative connotation of unfairness in administrative or legal contexts.
“The teacher seemed to pick students arbitrarily rather than following the alphabet.”
“The committee was criticized for arbitrarily changing the entry requirements just weeks before the application deadline.”
Academic
Usage
Typically modifies verbs related to decision-making, such as 'chosen', 'selected', 'assigned', or 'determined'.
Teaching tip
Learners often confuse this with 'randomly'; while similar, 'arbitrarily' often implies a human choice that lacks a fair justification.
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02to any degree or value
adv. to any size or amount, often used when the exact number does not matter for the result.
adv. to an unspecified or unrestricted degree; in mathematics, used to indicate that a value can be as large or small as desired.
“You can make the window arbitrarily small by dragging the corner.”
“The sequence can be shown to stay within the limit for an arbitrarily large number of iterations.”
Technical · Academic
Usage
Commonly precedes adjectives like 'large', 'small', 'high', or 'low' to indicate a lack of fixed bounds.
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Antonyms
Real-World Examples
“However, what most share is the need to unburden a guilty conscience and a desire to assign cause and meaning to the bad things that life seems to arbitrarily dole out.” “There’s something almost audacious in the randomness of the play’s narrative development, as if they’d set themselves the challenge of accepting every first idea, however arbitrarily it advances the plot.” Etymology
From arbitrary + -ly.
Etymology adapted from Wiktionary, available under CC BY-SA 4.0.
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englishreference.com/q/arbitrarily