discretionary
Americanadjective
-
subject or left to one's own discretion.
-
for any use or purpose one chooses; not earmarked for a particular purpose.
discretionary income; a discretionary fund.
adjective
Other Word Forms
Etymology
Origin of discretionary
First recorded in 1690–1700; discretion + -ary
Explanation
Discretionary means it's up to you to decide. Bathing regularly is a discretionary act, so you can opt not to do it if you want; note, however, that your friends might disagree with us on this. Discretionary is often used to describe money that isn’t designated for a particular purpose. It’s up to the people in charge to decide how discretionary funds should be spent. Discretionary comes from the word discretion, which can be used to mean “the right to decide something based on one’s own judgment.” If you're given a task to complete at your discretion, you can decide how you want to do it — or whether you want to do it at all.
Vocabulary lists containing discretionary
The Vocabulary.com Top 1000
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Dred Scott v. Sandford (1857)
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Just Mercy
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Example Sentences
Examples are provided to illustrate real-world usage of words in context. Any opinions expressed do not reflect the views of Dictionary.com.
And when inflation erodes spending power, those discretionary purchases slow, Samuelson noted.
From MarketWatch ● Oct. 17, 2026
Managers are most pessimistic about consumer discretionary stocks, with sentiment back to the depth of the 2008 recession.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Oct. 14, 2026
Marginal players probably wanted to rub shoulders with Oil Ministry bigwigs who have discretionary power over rights to explore and exploit oil blocks.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Oct. 4, 2026
To close a deficit of more than $200 million that it announced last year, USC froze hiring, laid off roughly 1,000 workers, eliminated merit raises, sold unused buildings and cut discretionary spending.
From Los Angeles Times ● Sep. 30, 2026
Spoade was the world’s champion sitter-around, no holds barred and gouging discretionary.
From "The Sound and the Fury" by William Faulkner
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Get a wordDefinitions and idiom definitions from Dictionary.com Unabridged, based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2023
Idioms from The American Heritage® Idioms Dictionary copyright © 2002, 2001, 1995 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company.
