 “Brute” is often taken to be interchangeable with “fundamental” (see McKenzie 2017 for a representative list of references). Is this objectionable? Just like “brute”, “fundamental” can be understood in many ways (see the entry on  fundamentality  for the various notions currently discussed in metaphysics), and whether “brute” and “fundamental” mean the same or otherwise have the same extension depends, trivially, on how these terms are understood. As we saw, “brute” can be understood as meaning the same as “ungrounded”. In some contexts, many philosophers use “fundamental” as synonymous with “ungrounded” in a way that is not at all objectionable (see e.g. Bennett 2011, Rosen 2010 and Schaffer 2009). Using “brute” and “fundamental” as interchangeable can thus be perfectly legitimate, albeit in uninteresting ways.