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arbiter

From Wiktionary, the free dictionary

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English

Etymology

From Middle English arbiter, arbytour, arbitre, from Old French arbitre, from Latin arbiter (“a witness, judge, literally one who goes to see”).

Pronunciation

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, determining, or ordaining; one whose power of deciding and governing is not limited.
    Television and film, not Vogue and similar magazines, are the arbiters of fashion.
    • 1993, Gajendra K. Verma, Inequality and teacher education: an international perspective, page 188:
      The grapholect of Standard English is not the exclusive system that arbiters of cultural purity wish to 'correct' us into believing
    • 2008, BioWare, Mass Effect, Redwood City: Electronic Arts, →ISBN, →OCLC, PC, scene: Starships: Dreadnought Codex entry:
      The dreadnought is the ultimate arbiter of space warfare; millions of tons of metal, ceramic, and polymer dedicated to the projection of firepower against an enemy vessel of like ability. No sane commander would face a dreadnought with anything less than another dreadnought.
  3. (electronics) A component in circuitry that allocates scarce resources.

Derived terms

Translations

Verb

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

  1. (transitive) To act as an 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.

Further reading

Anagrams

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Dutch

Etymology

From Middle Dutch arbiter, borrowed from Middle French arbitre, from Latin arbiter.

Pronunciation

  • Audio:(file)
  • Hyphenation: ar‧bi‧ter

Noun

arbiter m (plural arbiters, diminutive arbitertje n)

  1. arbiter, arbitrator
  2. (sports) referee

Descendants

  • → Indonesian: arbiter

Indonesian

Indonesian Wikipedia has an article on:
Wikipedia id

Etymology

From Dutch arbiter, from Latin arbiter.

Pronunciation

  • IPA(key): [arˈbitɛr]
  • Hyphenation: ar‧bi‧tèr

Noun

arbitèr (plural arbiter-arbiter)

  1. arbiter, arbitrator
    Synonym: arbitrator

Further reading

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Latin

Etymology

Uncertain, but probably cognate to Umbrian 𐌀𐌛𐌐𐌖𐌕𐌓𐌀𐌕𐌉 (ařputrati, “according to the judgement”, abl.sg.), corresponding to Latin arbitrātū. Possibly from ad- + baetō, with sporadic d > r as in arvorsum, arfuise, thus originally meaning "one that goes to something in order to see or hear it". However, that verb has no certain etymology, and the Umbrian pu remains unexplained. De Vaan suggests a derivation from putō to explain the Umbrian pu, however that is still morphologically difficult since the latter is based on an adjective. The voiced b would have to be exceptional or explained by some peculiarity of the řp sequence in Umbrian.

Pronunciation

Noun

arbiter m (genitive arbitrī, feminine arbitra); second declension

  1. witness, spectator, onlooker
    Synonym: testis
  2. (law) arbitrator, arbiter (having a wider power than a iūdex)
  3. (transferred sense) judge, umpire, arbitrator, arbiter
    Synonyms: iūdex, disceptātor, spectātor
    • 8 CE, Ovid, Fasti 5.665–666:
      pācis et armōrum superīs īmīsque deōrum
      arbiter, ālātō quī pede carpis iter
      In peace and war, [you] arbiter of the gods – for [those both] above and below – you who navigate the journey with winged foot, [...].
      (The poet is addressing Mercury (mythology).)
  4. overseer, controller, ruler
    Synonyms: erus, domnus, dominus

Declension

Second-declension noun (nominative singular in -er).

More information singular, plural ...

Descendants

Borrowings:

References

  • “arbiter” on page 175 of the Oxford Latin Dictionary (2nd ed., 2012)
  • De Vaan, Michiel (2008), “arbiter”, in Etymological Dictionary of Latin and the other Italic Languages (Leiden Indo-European Etymological Dictionary Series; 7), Leiden, Boston: Brill, →ISBN, page 50

Further reading

  • “arbiter”, in Charlton T. Lewis and Charles Short (1879), A Latin Dictionary, Oxford: Clarendon Press
  • “arbiter”, in Charlton T. Lewis (1891), An Elementary Latin Dictionary, New York: Harper & Brothers
  • “arbiter”, in Gaffiot, Félix (1934), Dictionnaire illustré latin-français, Hachette.
  • Carl Meißner; Henry William Auden (1894), Latin Phrase-Book‎, London: Macmillan and Co.
    • (ambiguous) in private; tête-à-tête: remotis arbitris or secreto
  • “arbiter”, in Harry Thurston Peck, editor (1898), Harper’s Dictionary of Classical Antiquities, New York: Harper & Brothers
  • “arbiter”, in William Smith et al., editor (1890), A Dictionary of Greek and Roman Antiquities, London: William Wayte. G. E. Marindin
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Polish

Etymology

Learned borrowing from Latin arbiter.

Pronunciation

  • IPA(key): /arˈbi.tɛr/
  • Audio:(file)
  • Rhymes: -itɛr
  • Syllabification: ar‧bi‧ter

Noun

arbiter m pers

  1. (law) arbiter (person appointed, or chosen, by parties to determine a controversy between them)
  2. authority (person)
    Synonyms: autorytet, powaga
  3. (sports) referee (umpire, judge of a game)
    Synonym: sędzia

Declension

Declension of arbiter
More information singular, plural ...
adjectives
adverb
noun
verb

Further reading

  • arbiter in Wielki słownik języka polskiego, Instytut Języka Polskiego PAN
  • arbiter in Polish dictionaries at PWN
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