based on or subject to individual discretion or preference or sometimes impulse or caprice; "an arbitrary decision"; "the arbitrary rule of a dictator"; "an arbitrary penalty"; "of arbitrary size and shape"; "an arbitrary choice"; "arbitrary division of the group into halves"
not dependent on or conditioned by or relative to anything else
not contingent
free from external control and constraint; "an independent mind"; "a series of independent judgments"; "fiercely independent individualism"; "an independent republic"
(of a clause) capable of standing syntactically alone as a complete sentence; "the main (or independent) clause in a complex sentence has at least a subject and a verb"