(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.
Whimsical
Definition:
(a.) Full of, or characterized by, whims; actuated by a whim; having peculiar notions; queer; strange; freakish.
(a.) Odd or fantastic in appearance; quaintly devised; fantastic.
Example Sentences:
(1) Although he could be lovable, charming, whimsical, encouraging, and deeply devoted to his family, he subjugated the adult women in his household and at least one son to exploitation and abuse, demanding (and receiving from his wife and step-daughter) almost total abnegation of self.
(2) Photograph: Rachel King Doing a whimsical self-promotional piece for a weekend culture supplement We would never joke about doing a whimsical self-promotional piece for a weekend culture supplement.
(3) Here, it’s easy to make yourself comfortable in the sweet, slightly whimsical bedrooms that open onto a serene, tree-filled courtyard.
(4) There's still touches of the old, more whimsical comedian, though, not to mention a one-woman play about the Mitford sisters' love for sexy Nazis.
(5) The Hobbit: The Battle of the Five Armies First up is the debut teaser for The Hobbit: The Battle of The Five Armies, the final instalment in Peter Jackson's epic three-part adaptation of JRR Tolkien 's whimsical fantasy fable.
(6) But with the support of Tony Whitby, the controller of Radio 4, Bob Robinson played a significant and influential part in accelerating Today's transformation from a whimsical magazine into a news and current affairs programme.
(7) A great read, and a delightful puzzle, but as the contradictory and whimsical interpretations of the rabbis show, hardly a reliable basis for justifying real-world land grabs.
(8) Find out about the great films they’re showing ...” On Monday, as Fox and Leadsom painted a vision of UK trade slightly more lo-tech and whimsical than the chocolate biscuit mill in Bagpuss, Corbyn’s only media comment was a tweet: “@LabourFilmFest is coming to the North West for the 1st time.
(9) More whimsical stuff for county blog regulars here in the north-east, where Darren Pattinson has been the central figure of the morning session.
(10) Trundling on a cheesy tourist trail around the Italian capital (the Trevi fountain, the Spanish Steps), it tells four whimsical stories that never intersect, meaning that its most watchable stars – Alec Baldwin, Penélope Cruz, Roberto Benigni and Allen, appearing in one of his movies for the first time since Scoop, in 2006 – never interact.
(11) In between, he has offered whimsical, slightly vaudevillian comic sagas of sex and drugs in Notting Hill (then a bohemian enclave of high hippydom) with titles such as The Saga of Peaches Melba and the Hash Officer, and Hector the Dope-Sniffing Hound .
(12) This highly energetic picture isn't for everyone – but if you like your whimsical magical realism done up in an antic, extra-crafty style, this may just win your heart.
(13) It limits evaluation to mere tendencies, formulated in such vague terms as "complete remission," "partial remission," and "treatment failure," in a disease whose natural history is sometimes so whimsical that the same clinical case, over a period of years, can be both a success and a failure of the same treatment.
(14) He was himself an artist in his spare time, and his whimsical creations included a man with three penises (Portnoy's Triple Complaint) carved from a tree trunk.
(15) He converted whatever his feelings were into the whimsical, quasi-romantic banter that eventually made its way into the Alice books.
(16) I still have mine at home.” Ranieri’s simulated alarm call was no less whimsical to Italian ears three decades ago than it is to English ones today.
(17) This article presents a whimsical overview of how a father can participate in this most important relationship through supporting and assisting the mother and developing comforting skills for the infant.
(18) The north-south divide always brings out the whimsical Tolkien in southerners.
(19) He goes after its baffling, mellifluous names – Smintheus, Agyieus, Platanistius, Theoxenius – his pencil languidly scratches, in a whimsical mock-invocation of Apollo from 1975.
(20) Music has always been the principal inspiration for Morris's work, and the variety in this season is reflected at one extreme by A Wooden Tree, Morris's response to the whimsical fantasy of Scottish poet Ivor Cutler, and Socrates, his marvellously poetic dialogue with the austere music of Eric Satie's score.