#saussure

• Arbitrary — Left to the free choice or whim of someone, without being based on a law, a fixed rule, or an objective necessity; despotic, abusive, unjustified. In linguistics and philosophy, the term describes a conventional connection established by simple social agreement, such as the relationship between the linguistic sign and the reality denoted.
• Arbitrariness of the linguistic sign — A fundamental principle of structural linguistics, formulated by Ferdinand de Saussure, stipulating that the bond between the signifier (the acoustic image or written form of a word) and the signified (its concept or meaning) is purely conventional and unmotivated. This means there is no intrinsic or necessary relationship between the sounds composing a term and the objective reality it denotes in nature.