English Language & Usage Stack Exchange is a question and answer site for linguists, etymologists, and serious English language enthusiasts. It only takes a minute to sign up.
Sign up to join this community
I'm looking for a word that describes the act of doing something without a real logical reason but just because they can. A example of what I'm talking about would be like this:
The boy hacked the Pentagon just because he could. He didn't steal anything and he didn't want the attention; he just wanted to proclaim his own self-dignity.
What would you call someone like that or the act of doing something like that?
Perhaps are you talking about someone who do things spontaneously. Extreme cases are simple-minded, autistic or genius. The root of this behaviour may be intuition, which is more common. Gratuitously of Graffito seems the best, or in this example : "you're male... and therefore more innately qualified."
While not a single word, the idiomatic for the hell of it seems to convey your intended meaning quite nicely:
Also, for the heck of it; just for the hell of it. For no particular reason; on a whim. For example, We drove by the old place just for the hell of it. In the first variant, heck is a euphemism for hell. [First half of 1900s]
if you do something for the hell of it, you do it only because you want to, or because you think it is funny I decided to dye my hair bright green, just for the hell of it.
Perhaps gratuitously
Definition: being done in a manner not demanded by the circumstances, without apparent reason, cause, or justification.
Example: Seven soldiers on patrol in south area killed an innocent teenager in a gratuitously violent attack using rifle butts, helmets, fists and feet.
