Definitions
American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth Edition
- adj. Left to or regulated by one's own discretion or judgment.
- adj. Available for use as needed or desired: a discretionary fund.
Century Dictionary and Cyclopedia
- Left to discretion; limited or restrained only by discretion or judgment: as, an ambassador invested with discretionary powers (that is, empowered to act according to circumstances).
Wiktionary
- adj. Available at one's discretion; able to be used as one chooses; left to or regulated by one's own discretion or judgment.
WordNet 3.0
- adj. having or using the ability to act or decide according to your own discretion or judgment
- adj. (especially of funds) not earmarked; available for use as needed
Etymologies
- discretion + -ary (“pertaining to”). Compare French discrétionnaire. (Wiktionary)
Examples
“Then, again, the courts have what they term discretionary grounds for divorce.”
“This deals with what we call discretionary spending.”
The Washington Post: Federal Budget 2012: Reaction to Obama's proposal
“So really only one-third of the pie is what we call discretionary spending and you can identify with this in your own budget, where there's some things that have to be paid, and there's some things you can play with.”
“So, really, only one-third of the pie is what we call discretionary spending.”
“VELSHI: Is my own personal Aunt Erika going to have the same view of what I call discretionary expenses?”
“So, he's looking at a very small part of the budget, it's what we call discretionary domestic programs or the stuff they have to appropriate every year, and that's being held at least in his budget to about a one percent -- little less than one percent increase, but you get so few savings that it has virtually no impact on the deficit at all.”
“Mr. Frenzel talked about 4 percent in what he called discretionary spending.”
CNN Transcript - Saturday Morning News: Bush Attempts to Sell Tax Cut to Country - March 3, 2001
“The courts have what they call discretionary powers, but the church has none.”
“The Federal Reserve Bank of New York recently published a jarring report on what it calls discretionary service spending, a category that excludes housing, food and health care and includes restaurant meals, entertainment, education and even insurance.”
“But over the last five years, we've made over $600 million on what I call discretionary trading.”
Valero Energy CEO Discusses Q4 2010 Earnings Call Transcript - Seeking Alpha
Lists
These user-created lists contain the word ‘discretionary’.
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revelation, eureka, awakening, idea, sapient, astute, canny, intelligent, wise, sharp, shrewd, informed and 467 more...
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EN - academic vocabulary
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abandon, abandonment, abnormally, abstract, abstraction, abstractly, abstracts, academia, academic, academically, academics, academies and 3119 more...
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GRE
predilection, explicit, appeal, supplication, appealing, enchanting, ovation, pertinent, apropos, opportunely, applicable, germane and 381 more...
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GMAT
part of speech, frown, brow, immensely, immense, incomprehensible, toil, concision, concise, proper noun, hyphenated, dash and 190 more...
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5-0
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amscray, thistledown, tine, tinsel, pungent, snarl, wail, lanky, viscid, dawdle, luminous, stow and 2719 more...
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