Definitions
from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 5th Edition.
- adjective Given or granted without return or recompense; unearned.
- adjective Given or received without cost or obligation; free.
- adjective Unnecessary or unwarranted; unjustified.
from The Century Dictionary.
- Freely bestowed or obtained; costing nothing to the recipient.
- Unnecessary; not required; not warranted by circumstances or reason; uncalled for: as, a gratuitous insult.
- Unwarranted, unnecessary, groundless.
from the GNU version of the Collaborative International Dictionary of English.
- adjective Given without an equivalent or recompense; conferred without valuable consideration; granted without pay, or without claim or merit; not required by justice.
- adjective Not called for by the circumstances; without reason, cause, or proof; adopted or asserted without any good ground.
from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License.
- adjective Given freely;
unearned . - adjective Not
called for by the circumstances;uncalled-for ; withoutreason , cause, or proof; adopted or asserted without any good ground;unjustified .
from WordNet 3.0 Copyright 2006 by Princeton University. All rights reserved.
- adjective without cause
- adjective costing nothing
- adjective unnecessary and unwarranted
Etymologies
from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 4th Edition
from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License
Support
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Examples
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My misery was what I call my gratuitous brain surgery.
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Zimbabwe's neighbors to follow the lead of the European Union and condemn what he called the gratuitous and violent actions by Mugabe against his own people.
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However, it is still worrying that Scotland Yard used the word 'gratuitous' to describe the Milly Dowler story, trying to say it was not in the public interest.
Telegraph.co.uk - Telegraph online, Daily Telegraph and Sunday Telegraph Josie Ensor 2011
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After all, poor white trash is only useful as cannon fodder in gratuitous wars.
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Among stories it described as "gratuitous" – literally, without merit – and not in the public interest was the revelation that the News of the World had hacked into Milly Dowler's voicemail.
The new Met chief's U-turn is welcome – he had made a gross misjudgment | Jonathan Freedland 2011
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She never indulged in gratuitous self-aggrandizing.
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The sole non-Japanese entry to this list is a South-Korean scifi spectacular that positively revels in gratuitous depictions of squash-and-stretch violence, sexuality, and bodily functions.
MIND MELD: Anime Film Favorites (+ The Top 14 Anime Films of All Time!) 2010
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In civilized societies, people act civilized and do not engage in gratuitous insults, which is exactly how Sarkozy and Obama behaved.
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Well if a definiton of gratuitous is 'being without apparent reason, cause or justification' then sadly that's exactly what violence is.
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Well if a definiton of gratuitous is 'being without apparent reason, cause or justification' then sadly that's exactly what violence is.
Crusaders 2008
shanvrolijk commented on the word gratuitous
"I'm going to agree with the pornification point. It takes me out of the show. I become aware of the set, and start thinking about how gratuitous it is. It's so posed and unnatural that it's more cringeworthy than titillating."
Source: What are some criticisms of Game of Thrones?
January 22, 2018