Definitions
from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 5th Edition.
- adjective Left to or regulated by one's own discretion or judgment.
- adjective Available for use as needed or desired.
from The Century Dictionary.
- Left to discretion; limited or restrained only by discretion or judgment: as, an ambassador invested with discretionary powers (that is, empowered to act according to circumstances).
from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License.
- adjective
Available at one'sdiscretion ; able to be used as onechooses ; left to orregulated by one's own discretion orjudgment .
from WordNet 3.0 Copyright 2006 by Princeton University. All rights reserved.
- adjective having or using the ability to act or decide according to your own discretion or judgment
- adjective (especially of funds) not earmarked; available for use as needed
Etymologies
from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License
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Examples
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Then, again, the courts have what they term discretionary grounds for divorce.
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This deals with what we call discretionary spending.
Federal Budget 2012: Reaction to Obama's proposal Emi Kolawole 2011
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So, really, only one-third of the pie is what we call discretionary spending.
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So really only one-third of the pie is what we call discretionary spending and you can identify with this in your own budget, where there's some things that have to be paid, and there's some things you can play with.
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VELSHI: Is my own personal Aunt Erika going to have the same view of what I call discretionary expenses?
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So, he's looking at a very small part of the budget, it's what we call discretionary domestic programs or the stuff they have to appropriate every year, and that's being held at least in his budget to about a one percent -- little less than one percent increase, but you get so few savings that it has virtually no impact on the deficit at all.
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Mr. Frenzel talked about 4 percent in what he called discretionary spending.
CNN Transcript - Saturday Morning News: Bush Attempts to Sell Tax Cut to Country - March 3, 2001 2001
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The courts have what they call discretionary powers, but the church has none.
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The Federal Reserve Bank of New York recently published a jarring report on what it calls discretionary service spending, a category that excludes housing, food and health care and includes restaurant meals, entertainment, education and even insurance.
NYT > Home Page By DAVID LEONHARDT 2011
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The Federal Reserve Bank of New York recently published a jarring report on what it calls discretionary service spending, a category that excludes housing, food and health care and includes restaurant meals, entertainment, education and even insurance.
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