(a.) Depending on will or discretion; not governed by any fixed rules; as, an arbitrary decision; an arbitrary punishment.
(a.) Exercised according to one's own will or caprice, and therefore conveying a notion of a tendency to abuse the possession of power.
(a.) Despotic; absolute in power; bound by no law; harsh and unforbearing; tyrannical; as, an arbitrary prince or government.
Example Sentences:
(1) This developed concept of "valve only" energy loss has the potential of standardising the findings of different research groups by removing the arbitrary selection of measurement points from reported results.
(2) 'Vertical' sections are plane sections longitudinal to a fixed (but arbitrary) axial direction.
(3) In the microtitre plate assay only 45% of specific IgE was immobilized and it was necessary to express the results in arbitrary units.
(4) It is concluded that renin levels in hypertension are influenced by several factors and that any attempt to subdivide patients into renin subgroups is therefore arbitrary.
(5) In his letter Abd El Fattah highlights the arbitrary nature of many of their detentions, the torture to which thousands have probably been subjected – and the apathy towards, and often enthusiasm for, such malpractice among the public.
(6) Although the diagnosis of hyperlipidemia is somewhat arbitrary, in that the upper limits of normal are not universally agreed upon, it is clear that the risk of atherosclerosis increases with plasma cholesterol concentration; it may also increase in hyperglyceridemia.
(7) Several arbitrary definitions have been used, some related to visual estimates of coronary stenosis and others to quantitative angiographic techniques.
(8) More than 60% of the residents' working hours in this program exceeded the arbitrary 80-hour limit, emphasizing the challenge of complying with the imposition of maximum work hours.
(9) Practically, serially accumulated images with sequentially prolonged accumulation times are weighted by two arbitrary functions.
(10) While somewhat arbitrary, the number of drug-affected newborns, adjusted for underreporting, was about 38,000 (95% confidence interval: 30,000-45,000).
(11) The almost-Orwellian technology that enables the government to store and analyze the phone metadata of every telephone user in the United States is unlike anything that could have been conceived in 1979 [...] I cannot imagine a more "indiscriminate" and "arbitrary invasion" than this systematic and high-tech collection and retention of personal data on virtually every single citizen for purposes of querying and analyzing it without prior judicial approval.
(12) For the chain with arbitrary values of characteristic times of individual stages the maximal possible degree of the chain stability and corresponding value of the feedback coefficient are estimated.
(13) The cellular total polyamine (spermidine + spermine) concentration on the slides varied between 4 and 15 nmol per mg protein (MCF-7 cells) and 5 and 26 nmol per mg protein (HeLa cells) and the corresponding microfluorometric results between 60 and 115 arbitrary units (MCF-7 cells) and 80 and 160 arbitrary units (HeLa cells).
(14) A general purpose computer program, PROPAGATE, has been written to allow addition, deletion, and modification of the beam line elements used in the calculation and to provide a convenient means of repeating such calculations for arbitrary beam lines.
(15) The current government should learn from past mistakes and not expand the programme too quickly in pursuit of arbitrary targets, and, above all else, not overclaim for free schools.
(16) The device consists of a motor-driven shaft which moves the record past a fixed cursor, and an electronic counter which records the movements of the shaft, thereby providing a cumulative tally of the distance of the current position of the cursor from some arbitrary origin on the record.
(17) Analysis of total radioligand binding was found to be a better procedure because it eliminates the use of an arbitrary concentration of unlabelled ligand and improves the accuracy of the assay.
(18) Water ferns (Salviniaceae) and seed ferns (Pteridospermae) are known as the arbitrary type of Lycopsida which did not reach the state of shot structure of the body.
(19) Methods are reviewed for estimating the transverse relaxation time T2 and the pseudodensity (PD) from spin-echo measurements acquired at an arbitrary set of echo times [TEi].
(20) The response of the resting (fully formed) hair follicle to irradiation was studied using an arbitrary 6 unit scale of epilation as an endpoint.
Dictatorial
Definition:
(a.) Pertaining or suited to a dictator; absolute.
(a.) Characteristic of a dictator; imperious; dogmatical; overbearing; as, a dictatorial tone or manner.
Example Sentences:
(1) But concerns about a slowing economy, jobs, civil rights and a lack of progress in the Kurdish peace process appear to have combined with worries that Erdoğan could assume quasi-dictatorial powers to thwart the president’s ambitions.
(2) Even if the move seemed dictatorial in the short term, it served to enshrine a constitution that in the long-term actually curtails Morsi's power – which to the Brotherhood makes his actions well-intentioned, if clumsy.
(3) Supporters of the accused men say their alleged crimes were trumped up by a dictatorial regime which feigned openness during the electoral campaign only to brutally suppress dissent when it saw the scale of public anger.
(4) It was a tragedy suffered by those trapped in a totalitarian and dictatorial system with no jangmadang to turn to.
(5) But to shape the future we need to understand the past.” One might expect that those words were aimed at Peter Thiel, the Facebook board member who has bucked Silicon Valley political orthodoxy by backing Donald Trump’s xenophobic, Islamophobic, sexist, anti-science, and increasingly dictatorial campaign for president.
(6) But the economic success story couldn’t mask the accusations that he was totalitarian and dictatorial – that he, however he could, crushed any political opposition, inside his party and out.
(7) I want to make it very clear that I will never rule this country without your mandate and I will never cheat.” The Gambia is one of Africa’s smallest and least important countries, so its unexpected shift to democracy will not bring political or economic pressure to bear on dictatorial neighbours or more distant nations.
(8) And to help promote this thoroughly anti-democratic measure, the junta has enlisted the judiciary, sullying the very bedrock of democracy.” The prospect of Prayuth’s dictatorial rule being extended indefinitely is not one that is welcomed in Washington.
(9) George Soros's Open Society Initiative for Southern Africa warns that Malawi is heading towards an "authoritarian era" under the "dictatorial whims of one man".
(10) Machar accused his rival of "dictatorial tendencies" and said that members of his Nuer community were being targeted.
(11) But it’s not that I believe those numbers should be dictatorial – we need to have an open discussion.
(12) Viewed in this context, the raiding of NGO offices in Egypt on Thursday is not especially surprising – though, of course, one of the main goals of the revolution was to put an end to such dictatorial practices, and the raiding of 17 NGOs in a single day was unprecedented, even during the Mubarak years.
(13) Man jailed for 30 years in Thailand for insulting the monarchy on Facebook Read more The ruling regime – the National Council for Peace and Order led by prime minister general Prayut Chan-ocha – took power in a coup d’état and promised to restore democracy within a year, but instead “exercised increasingly dictatorial power and continued to systematically repress fundamental rights and freedoms”.
(14) The leader of Karachi’s dominant political party has been accused by a respected former mayor of being an Indian agent and a dictatorial drunkard who has mismanaged the affairs of Pakistan’s biggest city from his base in north London.
(15) But his controlling personality meant some commanders deserted, and his dictatorial leadership prompted the breakaway Ansaru faction, according to a senior security official.
(16) But it is not economics, nor even his alleged dictatorial tendencies, that makes Modi such a polarising figure.
(17) "The conclusion is inescapable that the South African troops were deployed to defend the faltering and dictatorial Bozizé regime."
(18) They were the elite cadre of female bodyguards who surrounded Colonel Muammar Gaddafi for more than 20 years, becoming almost synonymous with his idiosyncratic dictatorial rule.
(19) While the conflict in that country is driven by multiple factors – a dictatorial regime, regional spillovers of extremism, an international community that has shifted between vacillation and interference – there is no doubt that the level of violence in that country is a direct result of decades of arms transfers to the region.
(20) They see it as part of the president’s attempt to acquire quasi-dictatorial powers at the expense of parliament and representative democracy.