arbitraryadj.n.

1574 J. Whitgift Def. Aunswere to Admon. ii. 101 The same thyngs were arbitrarye, and myghte haue beene otherwyse.

1618 Bp. J. Hall Righteovs Mammon 102 It is not left arbitrary to you, that you may doe good if you will.

1673 R. Allestree Ladies Calling i. v. §64 As if they thought it a very arbitrary matter whether they come or no.

1768 W. Blackstone Comm. Laws Eng. II. 26 He might give them to what priests he pleased; which were called arbitrary consecrations of tithes.

1581 W. Lambarde Eirenarcha iv. xv. 572 Judgements..arbitrarie, or referred to discretion.

1693 H. Wharton Specim. Errors Burnet ii. 67 Impropriated Livings, which have now no settled Endowment, and are therefore called not Vicarages, but perpetual or sometimes arbitrary Curacies.

1704 London Gaz. mmmmlxxxiii/4 A Mannor..with Quit Rents and Fines Arbitrary.

1880 J. Muirhead tr. Gaius Institutes iv. 343 If the defender have demanded a reference to an arbiter, he obtains what is called an arbitrary formula.

1882 Scriven Copyholds (ed. 6) 155 An admission fine is primâ facie uncertain, or in legal phraseology arbitrary. But the fines on admission to copyholds of inheritance, even if arbitrary, must be reasonable.

1646 Sir T. Browne Pseudodoxia Epidemica 170 From succeeding spectators they received arbitrary appellations. View more context for this quotation

1753 S. Johnson Adventurer No. 111. ⁋6 Our estimation of birth is arbitrary and capricious.

1865 E. B. Tylor Res. Early Hist. Mankind iii. 35 I do not believe there is a really arbitrary sign among them.

1865 R. W. Dale Jewish Temple xiii. 143 Their whole scheme of interpretation is purely arbitrary.

1642 in J. Rushworth Hist. Coll.: Third Pt. (1692) I. 763 Acts of Will and Tyranny, which make up an Arbitrary Government.

1715 A. Pope tr. Homer Iliad I. i. 236 Rule thy own Realms with arbitrary Sway.

1832 H. Martineau Demerara i. 5 No tyrant, no arbitrary disposer of the fortunes of his inferiors.

1862 W. F. Hook Lives Archbishops Canterbury II. ii. 159 The conduct of the Archbishop appears to have been arbitrary and harsh.

1829 C. Dickens in J. Forster Life Dickens (1871) I. 70 When I had..mastered the alphabet, there appeared a procession of new horrors, called arbitrary characters.

1890 Clarendon Press Inventory of Accents (title) Arbitrary Characters, &c. compiled April 1890.

1900 H. Hart Cent. Typogr. 139 I thought it unnecessary to ‘set’ the matrices for all the arbitrary characters.

1879 W. Thomson & P. G. Tait Treat. Nat. Philos. (new ed.) I: Pt. i. §343 f The complete solution of the differential equations..written as follows, to show its arbitraries explicitly.

1928 Periodical 15 Feb. 17 The variety of type used, the many languages involved, and the multiplication of ‘arbitraries’ have demanded technical knowledge and minute accuracy to an extent probably unequalled in any other work.