Arbiter
noun, verb ·Moderate ·College level
Definitions
- 1 A person appointed, or chosen, by parties to determine a controversy between them; an arbitrator.
"In order to protect individual liberty there must be an arbiter between the governing powers and the governed."
- 2 someone chosen to judge and decide a disputed issue wordnet
- 3 A person or object having the power of judging, determining, or ordaining; one whose power of deciding and governing is not limited. with-of
"Television and film, not Vogue and similar magazines, are the arbiters of fashion."
- 4 someone with the power to settle matters at will wordnet
- 5 A component in circuitry that allocates scarce resources.
- 1 To act as an arbiter. transitive
"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."
Example
More examples"An arbiter is a fair and impartial determiner of fact."
Etymology
From Middle English arbiter, arbytour, arbitre, from Old French arbitre, from Latin arbiter (“a witness, judge, literally one who goes to see”).
Related phrases
More for "arbiter"
Data sourced from Wiktionary, WordNet, CMU, and other open linguistic databases. Updated March 2026.