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Do you say "an arbitrarily small constant epsilon" or "an arbitrary small constant epsilon"? Or are both correct?

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I would say "an arbitrarily small constant epsilon" because arbitrarily modifies the adjective small. This is the usual meaning of the constant epsilon—that it can become as small as possible.

However, "an arbitrary small constant epsilon" has meaning in itself in the sense of a constant that is small and arbitrary. The word small would be then relative.

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This is what I couldn't figure out... Good answer, +1. – Alenanno Apr 30 '11 at 7:59
@Alenanno Perhaps you can add how these adjective modifiers are called. – Theta30 Apr 30 '11 at 8:19
they are called premodifiers, more here english.stackexchange.com/questions/15700/… – Theta30 Aug 20 '11 at 15:12

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