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Webster 1913 Edition


Arbiter

Ar′bi-ter

,
Noun.
[L.
arbiter
;
ar-
(for
ad
) + the root of
betere
to go; hence properly, one who comes up to look on.]
1.
A person appointed, or chosen, by parties to determine a controversy between them.
☞ In modern usage, arbitrator is the technical word.
2.
Any person who has the power of judging and determining, or ordaining, without control; one whose power of deciding and governing is not limited.
For Jove is
arbiter
of both to man.
Cowper.
Syn. – Arbitrator; umpire; director; referee; controller; ruler; governor.

Ar′bi-ter

,
Verb.
T.
To act as arbiter between.
[Obs.]

Webster 1828 Edition


Arbiter

'ARBITER

,
Noun.
[L.]
1.
A person appointed, or chosen by parties in controversy, to decide their differences. This is its sense in the civil law. In modern usage, arbitrator is the technical word.
2.
In a general sense, now most common, a person who has the power of judging and determining, without control; one whose power of deciding and governing is not limited.
3.
One that commands the destiny, or holds the empire of a nation or state.

Definition 2024


arbiter

arbiter

English

Noun

arbiter (plural arbiters)

  1. A person appointed, or chosen, by parties to determine a controversy between them; an arbitrator.
    • 1931, William Bennett Munro, The government of the United States, national, state, and local, page 495
      In order to protect individual liberty there must be an arbiter between the governing powers and the governed.
  2. (with of) A person or object having the power of judging and determining, or ordaining, without control; one whose power of deciding and governing is not limited.
    Television and film, not Vogue and similar magazines, are the arbiters of fashion.
  3. (electronics) A component in circuitry that allocates scarce resources.

Related terms

Translations

Verb

arbiter (third-person singular simple present arbiters, present participle arbitering, simple past and past participle arbitered)

  1. (transitive) To act as arbiter.
    • 2003, Jean-Benoit Nadeau, Julie Barlow, Sixty Million Frenchmen Can't be Wrong: Why We Love France But Not the French, page 116
      Worse, since there was no institution to arbiter disagreements between Parliament and the government, whenever Parliament voted against the government on the smallest issues, coalitions fragmented, and governments had to be recomposed.

Anagrams


Latin

Etymology

Possibly connected with ad- and bētō, thus originally meaning "one that goes to something in order to see or hear it".

Pronunciation

  • (Classical) IPA(key): /ˈar.bi.ter/, [ˈar.bɪ.tɛr]

Noun

arbiter m (genitive arbitrī); second declension

  1. witness, spectator, beholder, listener
  2. judge, arbitrator
  3. master, lord, ruler
  4. vocative singular of arbiter

Inflection

Second declension, nominative singular in -er.

Case Singular Plural
nominative arbiter arbitrī
genitive arbitrī arbitrōrum
dative arbitrō arbitrīs
accusative arbitrum arbitrōs
ablative arbitrō arbitrīs
vocative arbiter1 arbitrī

1May also be arbitre.

Derived terms

Descendants

References