arbiter

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

• (Received Pronunciation): IPA^(key): /ˈɑːbɪtə(ɹ)/

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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.

   • 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.

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

1. (transitive) To act as 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.

• “arbiter”, in Webster’s Revised Unabridged Dictionary, Springfield, Mass.: G. & C. Merriam, 1913, →OCLC.
• “arbiter”, in The Century Dictionary […], New York, N.Y.: The Century Co., 1911, →OCLC.

• rarebit

From Dutch arbiter, from Latin arbiter.

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

arbitèr (first-person possessive arbiterku, second-person possessive arbitermu, third-person possessive arbiternya)

1. arbiter, arbitrator: a person appointed, or chosen, by parties to determine a controversy between them.

   Synonym: arbitrator

• “arbiter” in Kamus Besar Bahasa Indonesia, Jakarta: Agency for Language Development and Cultivation – Ministry of Education, Culture, Research, and Technology of the Republic of Indonesia, 2016.

Uncertain, but probably cognate to Umbrian 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.

• (Classical) IPA^(key): /ˈar.bi.ter/, [ˈärbɪt̪ɛr]
• (modern Italianate Ecclesiastical) IPA^(key): /ˈar.bi.ter/, [ˈärbit̪er]

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

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

• arbitrātus
• arbitrium
• arbitror

• Portuguese: álvidro

Borrowings:

• → Catalan: àrbitre
• → English: arbiter
• → French: arbitre
  • → Russian: арбитр (arbitr)
    • → Georgian: არბიტრი (arbiṭri)
• → Italian: arbitro
• → Portuguese: árbitro
• → Romanian: arbitru
• → Sicilian: àrbitru
• → Spanish: árbitro

• “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

• “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

Borrowed from Latin arbiter.

• IPA^(key): /arˈbi.tɛr/

• Audio

  (file)

• Rhymes: -itɛr
• Syllabification: ar‧bi‧ter

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

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