How to use arbitrary in a sentence

40 example sentences · adjective, noun

Arbitrary means based on individual discretion or judgment; not based on any objective distinction, perhaps even made at random. Example: “Benjamin Franklin's designation of "positive" and "negative" to different charges was arbitrary.”

Examples of arbitrary by meaning

adjectiveBased on individual discretion or judgment; not based on any objective distinction, perhaps even made at random.

Benjamin Franklin's designation of "positive" and "negative" to different charges was arbitrary.
The decision to use 18 years as the legal age of adulthood was arbitrary, as both age 17 and 19 were reasonable alternatives.

adjectiveDetermined by impulse rather than reason; often connoting heavy-handedness.

The bromide conforms to everything sanctioned by the majority, and may be depended upon to be trite, banal, and arbitrary.1906, Gelett Burgess, Are You a Bromide?

adjectiveAny, out of all that are possible.

The equation is true for an arbitrary value of x.

nounAnything arbitrary, such as an arithmetical value or a fee.

And in this long chain of consistence, a chain stretching from the long dead to the far unborn, the notion of the arbitrary could only survive as the notion of a pre-established arbitrary.1953, Samuel Beckett, Watt, [Paris]: Olympia Press, →OCLC

More sentences with arbitrary

The problem of finding the largest clique in an arbitrary graph is NP-complete.From the entry clique
This arbitrary convention of dress caused three thousand women to be burned alive.2022, W. David Marx, chapter 4, in Status and Culture, Viking, →ISBN. From the entry crinoline
We establish this characteristic of concavifiability for continuous functions whose domain is an arbitrary geodesic metric space.2017, Connell, Chris and Rasmusen, Eric B., “Concavifying the Quasiconcave”, in Journal of Convex Analysis, volume 24, number 4, page 1239. From the entry concavifiability
Jacobinism was essentially a synthesis of eco- nomic dictatorship and arbitrary justice.2017, Peter Sloterdijk, “On Pseudonymous Politics: Regarding Implicit and Explicit Misconceptions of Democracy”, in Victoria Stiles…. From the entry phobocracy
He is the arbitrary being that decides our grades," Dylan Lee Soon Yoong explains.2016 March 3, Jody-Lan Castle, “Top 10 exam rituals from stressed students across Asia”, in BBC News, archived from the original on 02 Mar…. From the entry bell curve god
We then use the model to determine the population of icosahedra in mesoclusters at arbitrary temperature.244507 (2015), Rhiannon Pinney, Tanniemola B. Liverpool, C. Patrick Royall, “Recasting a model atomistic glassformer as a system of…. From the entry mesoclusters
Mostly technical jargon and arbitrary fortune-cookieish dictums on violence and heredity.2014, Geoffrey Girard, Cain's Blood: A Novel, page 42. From the entry cookieish
The explanatory report acknowledges that the result of the rule under the second indentation can appear arbitrary.2013, Jenny Papettas, The Law Applicable to Cross Border Road Traffic Accidents, Birmingham, page 204. From the entry indentation
The ctypes module can be used to create Python callables that wrap around arbitrary memory addresses.2013, David Beazley, Brian K. Jones, Python Cookbook: Recipes for Mastering Python 3. From the entry callable
This margin between the real and invented is always arbitrary and blurry.2010, Gregory Jusdanis, Fiction Agonistes. From the entry unstory
For Communion, he retained the somewhat arbitrary and excerptive pre-Reformation pattern of unconnected Epistle and Gospel readings.2009, Colin Buchanan, The A to Z of Anglicanism. From the entry excerptive
Let z be an arbitrary point in the complex plane, represented by the point P.2002, Yue Kuen Kwok, Applied Complex Variables for Scientists and Engineers, Cambridge University Press, page 27. From the entry Riemann sphere
This panentheistic doctrine contains all of deism and pandeism except their arbitrary negations.1964, Charles Hartshorne, Man's Vision of God and the Logic of Theism, page 348. From the entry panentheism
The location of the Heisenberg cut is arbitrary, but it must be at a point where classical physics assuredly holds.2021, Carl S. Helrich, The Quantum Theory—Origins and Ideas, Springer, page 192. From the entry Heisenberg cut
Understanding subjectedness unrelated to coercion, by contrast, makes it dependent on the wording of the respective rules, which appears arbitrary.2020, Dana Schmalz, Refugees, Democracy and the Law. From the entry subjectedness
As an example of application, we derive a new subgridding method with material traverse, arbitrary grid refinement, and guaranteed stability.2016, Fadime Bekmambetova, Xinyue Zhang, Piero Triverio, “A Dissipative Systems Theory for FDTD with Application to Stability Analysis and…. From the entry subgridding
In some of his vachanas, Basava noted how arbitrary the gods could be at the end of a man's life.2016, Sunil Khilnani, Incarnations, Penguin, published 2017, page 77. From the entry vachana
The evolution equations for constructed vector optical and symplectic tomograms and vector quasidistributions for arbitrary Hamiltonian are found.2015, Ya. A. Korennoy, V. I. Man'ko, “Evolution Equation for Joint Tomographic Probability Distribution of Spin-1 Particles”, in arXiv. From the entry quasidistributions
Moreover, our formulations can solve a more general class of scheduling problems, i.e. any periodic real-time taskset with arbitrary deadline.2015, Mason Thammawichai, Eric C. Kerrigan, “Energy-Efficient Scheduling for Homogeneous Multiprocessor Systems”, in arXiv. From the entry taskset
If 21 days seems like an arbitrary amount of time, let me explain the method to my madness.2015, Roger Lipp, Happy Habits for Every Couple: 21 Days to a Better Relationship, Harvest House Publishers, →ISBN, page 35. From the entry method to one's madness
Next let L be an arbitrary semisimple Lie algebra.2013, J.E. Humphreys, Introduction to Lie Algebras and Representation Theory, Springer, page 73. From the entry ideal
Even when we're at our most arbitrary and forgetful of our own stance, we remain antibestiality and anti-incest.2012, Tracy Morrissey, Pot Psychology's How to Be. From the entry anti-incest
A vain and arbitrary search for a needle in a haystack, that's exactly what it always seemed to be like.2012, Håkan Nesser, Münster's Case, An Inspector Van Veeteren Mystery. From the entry police work
Arbitrary memory overwrite, also known as the "write-what-where" vulnerability, is the most common vulnerability affecting Windows kernel drivers.2010, Enrico Perla, Massimiliano Oldani, A Guide to Kernel Exploitation: Attacking the Core, page 308. From the entry write-what-where
It begins with the normal distribution, which is the limiting form of the sample sum over an arbitrary population.2008, James L. Johnson, Probability and Statistics for Computer Science, Wiley, page 437. From the entry normal distribution
It lays foundation for a society where rule of law has primary and not arbitrary or capricious exercise of power.2008, Colin Gonsalves, Vijay Hiremath, Rebecca Gonsalvez, editors, Prisoners' Rights, volume 2, Human Rights Law Network (HRLN) (A…. From the entry dictionarily
All prices at the big supermarkets are arbitrary and have little bearing on the actual intrinisc worth of any ingredient.2008, MM, “Tesco's 185% increase in the price of grapeseed oil”, in uk.legal (Usenet). From the entry Waitrosey
As seen from these two examples of relatively simple kanjis, the stroke order and stroke count are arbitrary.2006, Yuji Matsumoto, Richard Sproat, Kam-Fai Wong, Computer Processing of Oriental Languages. From the entry kanjis
The truncation procedure that produced the truncated cube I can be applied to arbitrary polyhedra so as to obtain new polyhedra.2003, Saul Stahl, Geometry from Euclid to Knots, published 2010, page 278. From the entry truncated cube
When a TCP connection is established, the initiating host sends an arbitrary initial sequence number to the initiatee.2001, Steve Steinke, “Network and Transport Layer Protocols”, in Network Magazine: The Competitive Edge in Business Technology, volume 16…. From the entry initiatee
Let r ≥ 3 and let f be a Cʳ critical circle map with arbitrary irrational rotation number.1999 December, Edson de Faria, Welington de Melo, “Rigidity of critical circle mappings I”, in Journal of the European Mathematical…. From the entry Epstein class
The tasks that define security negarchies are not arbitrary, and are intimately connected to the logics of both hierarchy and anarchy.1996, Daniel Deudney, “Binding sovereigns: authorities, structures, and geopolitics in Philadelphian systems” in State Sovereignty as…. From the entry negarchy
And they serve it up with a powerful seasoning of old-boyism and arbitrary clique preference as between white males.1995, Duncan Kennedy, Sexy Dressing Etc, →ISBN, page 45. From the entry old-boyism
The arbitrary leaders pick their teams from the ranks of the ferior and inferior, usually in descending order.1994 June 21, “The dreamlike quality of periodicity.”, in talk.bizarre (Usenet). From the entry ferior
Let 𝐴 be an arbitrary integral domain.1990, A. I. Kostrikin, I. R. Shafarevich, editors, Algebra I, Springer, →ISBN, page 22. From the entry unit

Meaning of arbitrary

adjective Based on individual discretion or judgment; not based on any objective distinction, perhaps even made at random.
adjective Determined by impulse rather than reason; often connoting heavy-handedness.
adjective Any, out of all that are possible.

Full definition of arbitrary

Questions about arbitrary in a sentence

How do you use arbitrary in a sentence?: Arbitrary is used as an adjective and noun. For example: “Benjamin Franklin's designation of "positive" and "negative" to different charges was arbitrary.”
What is a short sentence with arbitrary?: “Let 𝐴 be an arbitrary integral domain.”
What does arbitrary mean?: Arbitrary means based on individual discretion or judgment; not based on any objective distinction, perhaps even made at random.

Adapted from Wiktionary: arbitrary (page history and authors) and the entries each sentence comes from. Text available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 license. Word.ws chose the sentences, left out offensive ones and quotations older than 1900, and marked the word in each. Wiktionary data of 2026-09-02.

Last updated: 2026-09-02

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