arbitrarily

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“
He explains that his group has simply chosen -- arbitrarily, if we understand him correctly -- to highlight the U.S. soldiers and Iraqi civilians killed in the liberation.

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Definitions (3)

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  1. In an arbitrary manner; at will; capriciously; without sufficient reason; in an irresponsible or despotic way. The Bishop of Dunkeld, who … had opposed the government, was arbitrarily ejected from his see, and a successor was appointed. Macaulay, Hist. Eng., vi.

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Examples (50)

  • Or we must break off the series arbitrarily, and affirm an absolute something that is in and of itself at once cause and effect (causa sui) subject and object, or rather the absolute identity of both. —  Biographia Literaria
  • It follows the sentence structure of prose, but the sentences are broken up--arbitrarily, it can seem--and placed on separate lines. —  F ;SF; - vol 104 issue 05 - May 2003
  • You can get * arbitrarily close* to the ideal black body by making the cavity as close to completely enclosed as will make it work. —  RealClimate
  • So if you guys go on shooting arbitrarily, its you who will be dead before long as the ceiling and the walls will fall on you. —  Random Thoughts of a Demented Mind
  • Are you truly bound to accept that simply because one of the conditions of my deityhood is that I can decide, arbitrarily, to withhold evidence per se? —  Wired Top Stories
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