GRATUITOUS • FREE TRANSLATOR.ORG • Definition of Gratuitous

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/grətˈuətəs/ Listen

adjective

Gratuitous adj.

Given without an equivalent or recompense; conferred without valuable consideration; granted without pay, or without claim or merit; not required by justice. "We mistake the gratuitous blessings of Heaven for the fruits of our own industry."

Not called for by the circumstances; without reason, cause, or proof; adopted or asserted without any good ground; as, a gratuitous assumption. "Acts of gratuitous self-humiliation."

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Etymology of 'Gratuitous'

Collaborative International Dictionary of English 0.48

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"Gratuitous" Quotes from Famous Books

... it freely. It came easy to me. I dug it out of Mother Earth, and there's plenty more where it came from. Seeing that I deprived you of access to your own money and all your personal belongings, you are entitled to this any way you look at it. And I want to throw in a bit of gratuitous advice—in case you should conclude to go back to the Meadows. They probably looked high and low for you. But there is no chance for them to learn where you actually did get to unless you yourself tell them. The most ...

— North of Fifty-Three • Bertrand W. Sinclair

... ordinarily understood, seem to have lost their authority, when weighed in the balance against the vote of the majority. Very recently the members of an honourable and useful profession represented to a minister that his extension of a scheme of more or less gratuitous relief to a class which hitherto had been able and willing to pay its way, was likely to deprive them of their livelihood. His reply, inter alia, contained the argument that the class in question was very numerous and had many votes, and that he doubted whether ...

— The Cult of Incompetence • Emile Faguet

... much better than I had expected. There's nothing wrong with the boy except his ineradicable temptation to impart to you his gratuitous tidbits of information. I can't object, of course, to Gershom having a college education: what I object to is his trying to give me one. I don't mind his wisdom, but I do hate to see him tear the whole tree of knowledge up by the roots and floor one with it. He has just ...

— The Prairie Child • Arthur Stringer

... conduct through a trap-door, in order to punish with rigour all those, who, while walking about, should hit against each other; but who would magnificently reward the few whom he had not deprived of sight, in avoiding to run against their comrades. Such are the ideas, which the dogma of gratuitous predestination gives us ...

— Good Sense - 1772 • Paul Henri Thiry, Baron D'Holbach

... readers with apologetic explanations as though his art were recondite and the tendency of his work immoral would be a gratuitous impertinence. ...

— Notes on Life and Letters • Joseph Conrad

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