Meaningless vs Arbitrary - What's the difference?
meaningless | arbitrary |
Lacking meaning.
Insignificant; not worthy of importance.
*{{quote-magazine, date=2013-07-20, volume=408, issue=8845, magazine=(The Economist)
, title= (usually, of a decision) Based on individual discretion or judgment; not based on any objective distinction, perhaps even made at random.
Determined by impulse rather than reason; heavy-handed.
(mathematics) Any and all possible.
Determined by independent arbiter.
Anything arbitrary, such as an arithmetical value or a fee.
As adjectives the difference between meaningless and arbitrary
is that meaningless is lacking meaning while arbitrary is based on individual discretion or judgment; not based on any objective distinction, perhaps even made at random.As a noun arbitrary is
anything arbitrary, such as an arithmetical value or a fee.meaningless
English
Adjective
(en adjective)Old soldiers?, passage=Whether modern, industrial man is less or more warlike than his hunter-gatherer ancestors is impossible to determine. The machine gun is so much more lethal than the bow and arrow that comparisons are meaningless .}}
Derived terms
* meaninglessnessSynonyms
* (not worthy of importance) negligible, trivialAntonyms
* (lacking meaning) meaningful * (not worthy of importance) significantarbitrary
English
Adjective
(arbitrariness) (en adjective)- Benjamin Franklin's designation of "positive" and "negative" to different charges was arbitrary . In fact, electrons flow in the opposite direction to conventional current.
- The decision to use 18 years as the legal age of adulthood was arbitrary , as both age 17 and 19 were reasonable alternatives.
- "The Russian trials were Stalin's purges, with which he attempted to consolidate his power. Like most people in the West, I believed these show trials to be the arbitrary acts of a cruel dictator." (
Max Born, Letters to Einstein
)
- The equation is true for an arbitrary value of x.
- To secure food safety, there should first be a national standard to arbitrarily state what is wholesome and what is not; second, the final buyer should know exactly what he is purchasing. (
The World's Work ...: a history of our time
)