How to Use arbitrary in a Sentence

arbitrary

adjective

• An arbitrary number has been assigned to each district.
• Although arbitrary arrests are illegal, they continue to occur in many parts of the country.
• I don't know why I chose that one; it was a completely arbitrary decision.
• The title, like so much else in the book, seems arbitrary.
  — Paul Elie, The New Yorker, 19 Aug. 2019
• Of course, your choice doesn’t have to be so arbitrary.
  — Alisha McDarris, Popular Science, 13 Jan. 2020
• And that arbitrary bit of division isn’t the end of it.
  — Andrew Van Dam, Washington Post, 11 Aug. 2023
• Because the shooting was arbitrary and up and down the street.
  — Meredith Deliso, ABC News, 16 May 2023
• But the way in which many of them use these numbers is arbitrary.
  — Kaitlyn Tiffany, The Atlantic, 17 Jan. 2023
• The record, whether carved in stone or bits of data, is arbitrary in the extreme.
  — Virginia Heffernan, WIRED, 20 Aug. 2019
• Here's what else gives me pause: The meal plan is arbitrary: Just look at the portion sizes.
  — Jaclyn London, Ms, Rd, Cdn, Good Housekeeping, 11 Dec. 2018
• And that method is both somewhat arbitrary and hard to scale up.
  — Jeremy Kahn, Fortune, 8 Feb. 2022
• That was the way to get through grief: make each moment hard with arbitrary want, then hop on them like rocks to get across the day.
  — Kate Osana Simonian, chicagotribune.com, 10 June 2017
• To critics, the list is arbitrary, vague and amounts to picking winners and losers.
  — Tory Newmyer, Washington Post, 9 Mar. 2018
• Each of the solid rounds is 82 tons, which is not an arbitrary number.
  — Mark Jenkins, Washington Post, 1 July 2022
• The heavy-handed and arbitrary way in which it was done in Shanghai backfired.
  — Robert Mahoney, CNN, 26 Apr. 2022
• But this is a highly arbitrary process, and marginalized people can slip through the cracks.
  — Alvin Chang, Vox, 26 July 2018
• The athletes call that arbitrary punishment for having dared to walk away from the team.
  — Vivienne Walt, Time, 8 July 2021
• Key factors like what tree to plant, when to plant it, and where are not arbitrary decisions.
  — Dan Lambe, Treehugger, 13 Apr. 2023
• This is a standard practice, but just to hold this arbitrary amount of money?
  — Nick Sullivan, The Arizona Republic, 10 Apr. 2024
• The judge is abusing the arbitrary and capricious standard.
  — Noah Feldman Bloomberg Opinion (tns), Star Tribune, 28 Jan. 2021
• My son has a set biorhythm, and no arbitrary daylight saving law is going to shift it.
  — Rachel Meyer, chicagotribune.com, 22 Nov. 2019
• Williams is known to wear outfits on the court that highlight her personal style while still abiding by the arbitrary rules of the court.
  — Essence Fashion News, Essence, 17 Nov. 2022
• Those thresholds are arbitrary, Ferris and Porter said, and far too deep.
  — Ian James, The Arizona Republic, 13 May 2021
• Sickness is arbitrary and can befall any one of us at any time.
  — Alaska Dispatch News, 2 Aug. 2017
• The world is strange and wonderful; good, bad, and sometimes arbitrary.
  — National Geographic, 14 Aug. 2016
• The Founders did not mean for government to be fickle or arbitrary.
  — Matthew Continetti, National Review, 10 June 2023
• In the end, the winners are arbitrary and the acceptance speeches repetitiveut the looks?
  — Danielle Sinay, Glamour, 8 Jan. 2024
• That death can be arbitrary is part of the human condition.
  — The Economist, 14 Dec. 2017
• The metrics of perfection are arbitrary and imposed in the service of those who fit them.
  — Hannah Sacks, Peoplemag, 21 Mar. 2024
• One is that $1 billion is a nice, round number but a rather arbitrary standard.
  — Callum Borchers, Washington Post, 30 Jan. 2018

Last Updated: 9 May 2024