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Definitions
Trivia Time
Which effect challenges linguist Ferdinand de Saussure's idea that language is arbitrary?

arbitrary

[ahr-bi-trer-ee] / ˈɑr bɪˌtrɛr i /




Example Sentences

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Keeping a collection of arbitrary objects may be irrational.

From The Wall Street Journal ● Sep. 11, 2026

A three-judge bench ruled that the pardon granted by then president Maithripala Sirisena in May 2019 was "arbitrary and invalid".

From Barron's ● Sep. 10, 2026

District Judge David O. Carter issued a preliminary injunction, calling HUD’s action arbitrary and capricious.

From Los Angeles Times ● Sep. 4, 2026

What’s striking to me is not the message that beauty standards are arbitrary, which is a nice takeaway, but the fact that she is abnormal in her “ugliness,” such as it is defined.

From Slate ● Sep. 2, 2026

Thus we can hold in mind just a few of the letters from an arbitrary sequence like MDPHDRSVPCEOIHOP.

From "The Sense of Style" by Steven Pinker

Some contained codes, devised by Anson Stager, general manager of U.S. military telegraphs, that inserted decoy words or arbitraries into messages that were unscrambled with cipher charts.

From Los Angeles Times ● Aug. 19, 2016




Vocabulary lists containing arbitrary


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