gratuitous
adjective
Roger L'EstrangeCurrent Biography
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These Gratuitous Facts Are Free
Like gratitude, grace, and congratulate, gratuitous is a descendant of the Latin word gratus, which means "pleasing" or "grateful." When gratuitous was first used in the 17th century, it meant "free" or "given without return benefit or compensation." The extended meaning "done without good reason" or "unwarranted" came about just a few decades later, perhaps from the belief held by some people that one should not give something without getting something in return. Today, that extended meaning is the more common sense, employed, for example, when graphic cruelty depicted in a work of fiction is described as "gratuitous violence," or when unkind words better left unsaid are described as "a gratuitous insult."
Examples of gratuitous in a Sentence
Proma Khosla, IndieWire, 30 Oct. 2024
Only to spend my money on senseless, completely gratuitous experiences, without zebras or anything.
—Yiyun Li, Harper's Magazine, 23 Sep. 2024
In an early cutscene, Frank checks out a character’s body with a first-person camera sequence following his gaze — but all in all, Deluxe Remaster is an interesting case for modernizing a game to omit gratuitous sexualization and sensationalism.
—Diego Argüello, Rolling Stone, 21 Sep. 2024
Left unchecked, their unpaid bills, gratuitous spending or willingness to give away their money whenever asked can drain their savings and push them into debt.
—Andrew Torgan, CNN, 27 Oct. 2024
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Cite this Entry
“Gratuitous.” Merriam-Webster.com Dictionary, Merriam-Webster, https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/gratuitous. Accessed 22 Nov. 2024.
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gratuitous
adjective
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