Gratuitous

//ɡɹəˈtu.ɪt.əs// adj

adj ·Common ·High school level

Definitions

Adjective
  1. 1
    Given freely; unearned.

    "Also mentioned is the Rev. T. Stock, who has a tablet in St John's church [Gloucester] and "who with Raikes established the four original Sunday schools in this parish ... in 1780. From this small beginning sprung that gratuitous system of Christian instruction which has covered the face of England and Wales with schools.""

  2. 2
    Unjustified or unnecessary; not called for by the circumstances.

    "gratuitous violence"

Adjective
  1. 1
    without cause wordnet
  2. 2
    unnecessary and unwarranted wordnet
  3. 3
    costing nothing wordnet

Synonyms

All synonyms
costlessfreegratissuperfluousaccordedaimless

Example

More examples

"The aggression was provoked by all those gratuitous insults."

Etymology

From Latin grātuītus (“free”), from Latin grātia (“favor”), grātus (“showing favor”).

Related phrases

gratuitous praisegratuitous violencecall for

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Data sourced from Wiktionary, WordNet, CMU, and other open linguistic databases. Updated March 2026.