Arbitrary: Definition and part of speech

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Arbitrary

  1. a. Despotic; absolute in power; bound by no law; harsh and unforbearing; tyrannical; as, an arbitrary prince or government.
  2. a. Depending on will or discretion; not governed by any fixed rules; as, an arbitrary decision; an arbitrary punishment.
  3. a. Exercised according to one’s own will or caprice, and therefore conveying a notion of a tendency to abuse the possession of power.

The word meanings were obtained from OPTED(The Online Plain Text English Dictionary), which is based on “The Project Gutenberg Etext of Webster’s Unabridged Dictionary” which is in turn based on the 1913 US Webster’s Unabridged Dictionary (See Project Gutenburg), as a text file.

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