Both Uses of
gratuitous
in
Jude the Obscure
- Passing the evening, therefore, in a desultory waiting about the town wherein he avoided the precincts of every cloister and hall, because he could not bear to behold them, he repaired to the tavern bar while the hundred and one strokes were resounding from the Great Bell of Cardinal College, a coincidence which seemed to him gratuitous irony.†
Part 3 *
- Don't you think it is destructive to a passion whose essence is its gratuitousness?"†
Part 5
Definition:
-
(gratuitous) unnecessary and unwarranted
or less commonly (except where it is common in the legal field): costing nothing