6 uses
(click/touch triangles for details)
Definition
based on chance or impulse (rather than upon reasoning, consistent rules, or a proper sense of fairness)
- Fine, no one else had anything better, so let the spirit share this arbitrary item from the fullness of its knowledge.7.8 - Highly Questionable (40% in)
- He was thirteen years old, a seventh-grader in short pants, and he was standing in the schoolyard talking with another boy about his age, but from a different class—a conversation that Hans Castorp had initiated more or less arbitrarily and that delighted him no end, although it would be a short one, given the limited scope offered by the physical object under discussion.4.5 - Hippe (52% in)
- If so, we needed some light for it—please forgive my arbitrarily taking care of the matter," he said, waving one small hand toward the ceiling lamp.5.1 - Eternal Soup and Sudden Clarity (52% in)
- It's never used, or at least hardly ever, for what's been happening to me. i used it quite arbitrarily, simply because my head is a little muddled.6.7 - Snow (63% in)
- Forgive me, Mynheer Peeperkorn, for having arbitrarily completed your sentence.7.4 - Mynheer Peeperkorn (Continued) (72% in)
- And scientific accuracy likewise prohibited even thinking of engaging in any such arbitrary departure and return.7.8 - Highly Questionable (93% in)
There are no more uses of "arbitrary" in The Magic Mountain.
Typical Usage
(best examples)