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a person empowered to decide matters at issue; judge; umpire.
a person who has the sole or absolute power of judging or determining.
a judge of elegance or matters of taste.
Contemporary Examples

Second, HR’s role is to serve as the company’s arbiter of equity.
Layoffs: HR’s Moment of Truth Jack And Suzy Welch March 10, 2009

This man should be considered an arbiter of a historical woman?
Don’t Call Sally Ride a Lesbian Amy Siskind August 1, 2012

And certainly no arbiter of what you should buy, wear, or eat.
The EPA Is Keeping Up With the Kardashians; Gigi Hadid and Ireland Baldwin’s Sisley Love Triangle The Fashion Beast Team July 21, 2014

Historical Examples

Lombardy was made the seat of war; and here the king of Sardinia acted as in some sense the arbiter of the situation.
Encyclopaedia Britannica, 11th Edition, Volume 15, Slice 1 Various

It was terrible to be chosen in this way to be the arbiter of Destiny.
Viviette William J. Locke

Being accepted as arbiter, he carefully studied the question of border lines, and conscientiously defined them.
The Two First Centuries of Florentine History Pasquale Villari

The event established Mary as the arbiter in her own coterie.
Within the Law Marvin Dana

I will choose as an arbiter between us one of my friends—a man who acts on the square, like myself—the Marquis de Valorsay.
Baron Trigault’s Vengeance Emile Gaboriau

I, who had engaged as Conductor of the Set and found myself their arbiter as well.
It Happened in Egypt C. N. Williamson

arbiter elegantiarum—The arbitrator of elegances; 25 the master of the ceremonies.
Dictionary of Quotations from Ancient and Modern, English and Foreign Sources James Wood

noun
a person empowered to judge in a dispute; referee; arbitrator
a person having complete control of something
n.

late 14c., from Old French arbitre or directly from Latin arbiter “one who goes somewhere (as witness or judge),” in classical Latin used of spectators and eye-witnesses, in law, “he who hears and decides a case, a judge, umpire, mediator;” from ad- “to” (see ad-) + baetere “to come, go.” The specific sense of “one chosen by two disputing parties to decide the matter” is from 1540s. The earliest form of the word attested in English is the fem. noun arbitress (mid-14c.) “a woman who settles disputes.”