(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.
Selfish
Definition:
(a.) Caring supremely or unduly for one's self; regarding one's own comfort, advantage, etc., in disregard, or at the expense, of those of others.
(a.) Believing or teaching that the chief motives of human action are derived from love of self.
Example Sentences:
(1) A series of hierarchical multiple regressions revealed the effects of Surgency, Agreeableness, Conscientiousness, Emotional Stability, and Intellect on evoking upset in spouses through condescension (e.g., treating spouse as stupid or inferior), possessiveness (demanding too much time and attention), abuse (slapping spouse), unfaithfulness (having sex with others), inconsiderateness (leaving toilet seat up), moodiness (crying a lot), alcohol abuse (drinking too much alcohol), emotional constriction (hiding emotions to act tough), and self-centeredness (acting selfishly).
(2) They have been selfish, thinking of what they can achieve with gas.
(3) For a while yesterday, Hazel Blears's selfishly-timed resignation with her rude "rock the boat" brooch send shudders of revulsion through some in the party.
(4) A second level of concerted evolution occurs within the functional L1 sequences in a pattern that did not meet our expectations for selfish DNA.
(5) Not only did it make every grocery-store run a guilt trip; it made me feel selfish for caring more about birds in the present than about people in the future.
(6) Back in 1999 Chris Sidoti, then-head of the Australian Human Rights Commission, called the baby boomers “the most selfish generation in history”.
(7) It said Clinton's "cheap shots" had a hidden agenda to discredit China's engagement with Africa and "drive a wedge between China and Africa for the US selfish gain."
(8) We propose that REP sequences may be a prokaryotic equivalent of 'selfish DNA' and that gene conversion may play a role in the evolution and maintenance of REP sequences.
(9) Although angry when talking about the regime, his campaign grew from selfish motives.
(10) After The Arbor's success, said Barnard, the women who would become The Selfish Giant's executive producers, Lizzie Francke at the BFI and Katherine Butler from Film4, "were fantastic about saying, 'What do you want to do next?
(11) None of them is British, though there is great anticipation about The Selfish Giant, Clio Barnard's second feature, which premieres in the Directors' Fortnight .
(12) Further, it is selfish to suggest that Americans should feel some sort of responsibility for their fellow citizens.
(13) In an ideal world, such findings might be interpreted as smart women making smart choices, but instead it seems that this research is just adding fuel to the argument that women who don't have children, regardless of the reason, are not just selfish losers but dumb ones as well.
(14) Denial is absurdly selfish (and yet the best selfishness is yet to come).
(15) Jeremy Clarkson faced further censure on Saturday after describing people who killed themselves by jumping under trains as "selfish".
(16) A world filled with broken promises, selfishness and separations.
(17) In fact, Wilson's arguments are more fundamental and persuasive than Snow's; works on evolution, like Sociobiology and Dawkins's The Selfish Gene, have been absorbed into western cultural life as neatly as any neo-Darwinist could have predicted.
(18) Sometimes the athletes are so selfish they won't give up their own stuff to help others."
(19) Her newspaper profiles over the years are peppered with self-deprecating references to her sporting ruthlessness: her constant mentions of her selfishness and egotism; her win-at-all-costs, only-gold-medals-matter mentality; or the time she flung her helmet at her boyfriend in frustration after losing a race.
(20) This has been encouraged by the press' standard strike narrative: these selfish bastards are striking, this is bad, and it will affect you in this awful unacceptable way of maybe making you slightly late for work.