gratuitous
English
[edit]Etymology
[edit]From Latin grātuītus (“free”), from Latin grātia (“favor”), grātus (“showing favor”).
Pronunciation
[edit]Adjective
[edit]gratuitous (comparative more gratuitous, superlative most gratuitous)
- Given freely; unearned.
- 2023 January 11, Stephen Roberts, “Bradshaw's Britain: castles and cathedrals”, in RAIL, number 974, page 56:
- Also mentioned is the Rev. T. Stock, who has a tablet in St John's church [Gloucester] and "who with Raikes established the four original Sunday schools in this parish ... in 1780. From this small beginning sprung that gratuitous system of Christian instruction which has covered the face of England and Wales with schools."
- Unjustified or unnecessary; not called for by the circumstances.
- Synonym: uncalled-for
- gratuitous violence
- 1983, Lorenzo Semple Jr., Never Say Never Again, spoken by Q (Alec McCowen):
- Good to see you Mr. Bond. Things've been awfully dull 'round here. […] Now you're on this. I hope we're going to have some gratuitous sex and violence!
- (in linguistic criticism) Extraneous, interpolated.
- 2019, Andy Griffiths, illustrated by Terry Denton, The 117-Story Treehouse, American Edition, pages 142-143:
- [Chief of the Story Police:] “ […] You are hereby charged with crimes against good and proper storytelling, including the use of outlandish plots, ridiculous characters, silly names, needless repetition—I repeat, needless repetition—too much detail in some places and not enough in others, lack of worthy life lessons, poor dietary habits, unlikely escapes, gratuitous violence, time-wasting chases, and worst of all, clichéd endings, such as it was all just a dream...Need I go on?”
Synonyms
[edit](given freely):
(not called for by the circumstances):
Antonyms
[edit]Coordinate terms
[edit]Derived terms
[edit]Related terms
[edit]Translations
[edit]
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not called for by the circumstances — see also for nothing, arbitrary, unjustified, inappropriate, unmerited, undue
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Further reading
[edit]- “gratuitous”, in Webster’s Revised Unabridged Dictionary, Springfield, Mass.: G. & C. Merriam, 1913, →OCLC.
- William Dwight Whitney, Benjamin Eli Smith, editors (1895–1910), “gratuitous”, in The Century Dictionary […], New York, N.Y.: The Century Co., →OCLC.
Categories:
- English terms derived from Proto-Indo-European
- English terms derived from the Proto-Indo-European root *gʷerH-
- English terms borrowed from Latin
- English terms derived from Latin
- English 4-syllable words
- English terms with IPA pronunciation
- English terms with audio pronunciation
- English lemmas
- English adjectives
- English terms with quotations
- English terms with collocations