arbitrate

t. & i. [In Fr. arbitrer; Prov., Sp., & Port. arbitrar; Ital. arbitrare; Lat. arbitror, at us = (1) to observe, (2) to judge, (3) to testify, (4) to believe.] A. Transitive: 1. To judge, to judge of. "Yet, where an equal poise of hope and fear Does arbitrate the event, iny nature is, That I incline to hope rather than fear."- Milton . 2. To decide, settle, determine. "At Coventry, upon Saint Lambert's day; There shall your swords and lances arbitrate The swelling difference of your settled hate." Shakesp.: King Richard II., L. 1. "Let Heaven's high powers be calld to arbitrate The just conditions of this stern debate." Pope: Homer's Iliad , bk. xxii., 323-4. B. Intransitive : To decide in the capacity of an arbitrator; or, more generally, to decide, to determine. ". consuls and vice-consuls, whose busine was to keep the Pacha and the Cadi in good humour, and to arbitrate in disputes among English men."Macaulay: Hist . Eng . , chap. xxiii.