Definition of "arbitrary" []

• Determined by chance, whim, or impulse, and not by necessity, reason, or principle: stopped at the first motel we passed, an arbitrary choice. (adjective)
• Based on or subject to individual judgment or preference: The diet imposes overall calorie limits, but daily menus are arbitrary. (adjective)
• Established by a court or judge rather than by a specific law or statute: an arbitrary penalty. (adjective)
• Not limited by law; despotic: the arbitrary rule of a dictator. (adjective)

American Heritage(R) Dictionary of the English Language, Fifth Edition. Copyright (c) 2011 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. All rights reserved.

• "“But I know people that define art as anything that somebody has claimed to be art, effectively rendering the term arbitrary and useless.”"
• "The development is contained in a report by the Obama administration, International Strategy for Cyberspace, in which the US for the first time sets out a strategy for dealing with the expansion of the internet and what it describes as "arbitrary and malicious disruption"."
• "Ethnic tribes that still hold on to the dream of a unified Pashtun nation refuse to recognize what they call an "arbitrary line"."