Random word and definition

Princeton’s WordNetRate this definition:0.0 / 0 votes

1. randomadjective

   lacking any definite plan or order or purpose; governed by or depending on chance

   «a random choice»; «bombs fell at random»; «random movements»

GCIDERate this definition:5.0 / 1 vote

1. Randomadjective

   (Statistics) Of, pertaining to, or resulting from a process of selection from a starting set of items, in which the probability of selecting any one object in the starting set is equal to the probability of selecting any other.

2. Randomadjective

   (Construction) of unequal size or shape; made from components of unequal size or shape.

WiktionaryRate this definition:0.0 / 0 votes

1. randomnoun

   Speed, full speed; impetuosity, force.

2. randomnoun

   The full range of a bullet or other projectile; hence, the angle at which a weapon is tilted to allow the greatest range.

3. randomnoun

   An undefined, unknown or unimportant person; a person of no consequence.

   The party was boring. It was full of randoms.

4. randomadjective

   Having unpredictable outcomes and, in the ideal case, all outcomes equally probable; resulting from such selection; lacking statistical correlation.

5. randomadjective

   Of or relating to probability distribution.

   A toss of loaded dice is still random, though biased.

6. randomadjective

   Pseudorandom in contrast to truly random; mimicking the result of random selection.

   The function generates a random number from a seed.

7. randomadjective

   Representative and undistinguished; typical and average; selected for no particular reason.

   A random American off the street couldn’t tell the difference.

8. randomadjective

   Apropos of nothing; lacking context; unexpected; having apparent lack of plan, cause or reason.

9. randomadjective

   Characterized by or often saying random things; habitually using non sequiturs.

   You’re so random!

Samuel Johnson’s DictionaryRate this definition:0.0 / 0 votes

1. Randomadjective

   Done by chance; roving without direction.

   Virtue borrow’d but the arms of chance,
   And struck a random blow! ’twas fortune’s work,
   And fortune take the praise.
   Dryden.

2. Randomnoun

   Want of direction; want of rule or method; chance; hazard; roving motion.

   Etymology: randon, Fr.

   Thy words at random argue thy inexperience.
   John Milton.

   He lies at random carelesly diffus’d,
   With languish’d head unpropt,
   As one past hope abandon’d.
   John Milton.

   Fond love his darts at random throws,
   And nothing springs from what he sows.
   Edmund Waller.

   The striker must be dense, and in its best velocity: the angle, which the missive is to mount by, if we will have it go to its furthest random, must be the half of a right one; and the figure of the missive must be such, as may give scope to the air to bear it.
   Digby.

   In the days of old the birds lived at random in a lawless state of anarchy; but in time they moved for the setting up of a king.
   Roger L’Estrange, Fables.

   Who could govern the dependance of one event upon another, if that event happened at random, and was not cast into a certain relation to some foregoing purpose to direct.
   South.

   ’Tis one thing when a person of true merit is drawn as like as we can; and another, when we make a fine thing at random, and persuade the next vain creature that ’tis his own likeness.
   Alexander Pope.

WikipediaRate this definition:0.0 / 0 votes

1. random

   In common usage, randomness is the apparent or actual lack of pattern or predictability in events. A random sequence of events, symbols or steps often has no order and does not follow an intelligible pattern or combination. Individual random events are, by definition, unpredictable, but if the probability distribution is known, the frequency of different outcomes over repeated events (or «trials») is predictable. For example, when throwing two dice, the outcome of any particular roll is unpredictable, but a sum of 7 will tend to occur twice as often as 4. In this view, randomness is not haphazardness; it is a measure of uncertainty of an outcome. Randomness applies to concepts of chance, probability, and information entropy.
   The fields of mathematics, probability, and statistics use formal definitions of randomness. In statistics, a random variable is an assignment of a numerical value to each possible outcome of an event space. This association facilitates the identification and the calculation of probabilities of the events. Random variables can appear in random sequences. A random process is a sequence of random variables whose outcomes do not follow a deterministic pattern, but follow an evolution described by probability distributions. These and other constructs are extremely useful in probability theory and the various applications of randomness.
   Randomness is most often used in statistics to signify well-defined statistical properties. Monte Carlo methods, which rely on random input (such as from random number generators or pseudorandom number generators), are important techniques in science, particularly in the field of computational science. By analogy, quasi-Monte Carlo methods use quasi-random number generators.
   Random selection, when narrowly associated with a simple random sample, is a method of selecting items (often called units) from a population where the probability of choosing a specific item is the proportion of those items in the population. For example, with a bowl containing just 10 red marbles and 90 blue marbles, a random selection mechanism would choose a red marble with probability 1/10. A random selection mechanism that selected 10 marbles from this bowl would not necessarily result in 1 red and 9 blue. In situations where a population consists of items that are distinguishable, a random selection mechanism requires equal probabilities for any item to be chosen. That is, if the selection process is such that each member of a population, say research subjects, has the same probability of being chosen, then we can say the selection process is random.According to Ramsey theory, pure randomness is impossible, especially for large structures. Mathematician Theodore Motzkin suggested that «while disorder is more probable in general, complete disorder is impossible». Misunderstanding this can lead to numerous conspiracy theories. Cristian S. Calude stated that «given the impossibility of true randomness, the effort is directed towards studying degrees of randomness». It can be proven that there is infinite hierarchy (in terms of quality or strength) of forms of randomness.

Webster DictionaryRate this definition:5.0 / 1 vote

1. Randomnoun

   force; violence

2. Randomnoun

   a roving motion; course without definite direction; want of direction, rule, or method; hazard; chance; — commonly used in the phrase at random, that is, without a settled point of direction; at hazard

3. Randomnoun

   distance to which a missile is cast; range; reach; as, the random of a rifle ball

4. Randomnoun

   the direction of a rake-vein

5. Randomadjective

   going at random or by chance; done or made at hazard, or without settled direction, aim, or purpose; hazarded without previous calculation; left to chance; haphazard; as, a random guess

6. Etymology: [OE. randon, OF. randon force, violence, rapidity, randon, de randon, violently, suddenly, rapidly, prob. of German origin; cf. G. rand edge, border, OHG. rant shield, edge of a shield, akin to E. rand, n. See Rand, n.]

FreebaseRate this definition:0.0 / 0 votes

1. Random

   Random is a fictional character and antihero created by writer Peter David for the Marvel Comics series X-Factor. He started out as a thorn in the side of X-Factor, but he later became a reluctant ally of theirs. The mystery of his life has yet to be completely revealed.

Chambers 20th Century DictionaryRate this definition:0.0 / 0 votes

1. Random

   ran′dum, adj. done or uttered at haphazard: left to chance: aimless—(obs.) Ran′don.—n. something done without aim, chance—now only in phrase, At random, haphazard.—adv. Ran′domly, without direction: by chance. [O. Fr. randon, urgency, haste; from Teut.; Ger. rand, a brim.]

The New Hacker’s DictionaryRate this definition:0.0 / 0 votes

1. random

   1. Unpredictable (closest to mathematical definition); weird.
   “The system’s been behaving pretty randomly.” 2. Assorted; undistinguished. “Who was at the
   conference?” “Just a bunch of random business
   types.” 3. (pejorative) Frivolous; unproductive; undirected. “He’s
   just a random loser.” 4. Incoherent or inelegant; poorly chosen; not well organized.
   “The program has a random set of misfeatures.” “That’s a
   random name for that function.” “Well, all the names were
   chosen pretty randomly.” 5. In no particular order, though deterministic. “The I/O
   channels are in a pool, and when a file is opened one is chosen
   randomly.” 6. Arbitrary. “It generates a random name for the scratch
   file.” 7. Gratuitously wrong, i.e., poorly done and for no good apparent
   reason. For example, a program that handles file name defaulting in a
   particularly useless way, or an assembler routine that could easily have
   been coded using only three registers, but redundantly uses seven for
   values with non-overlapping lifetimes, so that no one else can invoke it
   without first saving four extra registers. What
   randomness! 8. n. A random hacker; used
   particularly of high-school students who soak up computer time and
   generally get in the way. 9. n. Anyone who is not a hacker
   (or, sometimes, anyone not known to the hacker speaking); the noun form of
   sense 2. “I went to the talk, but the audience was full of randoms
   asking bogus questions”. 10. n. (occasional MIT usage)
   One who lives at Random Hall. See also J. Random,
   some random X. 11. [UK] Conversationally, a non sequitur or something similarly
   out-of-the-blue. As in: “Stop being so random!” This sense
   equates to ‘hatstand’, taken from the Viz comic character
   “Roger Irrelevant — He’s completely Hatstand.”

Military Dictionary and GazetteerRate this definition:0.0 / 0 votes

1. random

   Distance to which a missile is thrown or projected; range; reach; as, the farthest random of a missile weapon.

British National Corpus

1. Spoken Corpus Frequency

   Rank popularity for the word ‘random’ in Spoken Corpus Frequency: #4731

2. Adjectives Frequency

   Rank popularity for the word ‘random’ in Adjectives Frequency: #647

How to pronounce random?

How to say random in sign language?

Numerology

1. Chaldean Numerology

   The numerical value of random in Chaldean Numerology is: 5

2. Pythagorean Numerology

   The numerical value of random in Pythagorean Numerology is: 2

Examples of random in a Sentence

1. Leon Cizelj:

   Random shelling can not really destroy this, it would be really improbable.

2. Courtesy Brookhaven Police Department:

   This incident appears to be a random act involving individuals participating in the reckless discharge of firearm(s) which led to the tragic death of Dr. Willson.

3. Brian Levin:

   [Antifa’s] list of what is fascist has grown far beyond the loathsome, Swastika-carrying white nationalists, to controversial conservatives, speakers, the police, journalists and random people who get in their way.

4. President Barack Obama:

   We also believe that it’s important for both, Prime Minister Netanyahu and Israeli elected officials and President Abbas and other people in positions of power, to try to tamp down rhetoric that may feed violence or anger or misunderstanding and try to get all people in Israel and in the West Bank to recognize that this kind of random violence is not going to result in anything other than more hardship and more insecurity.

5. Charles Krauthammer:

   [and] was acting pre-ISIS, what ISIS does is I think it gives direction, organization, and because of its command of the social media can actually activate people in a way that was more random before.

Popularity rank by frequency of use

• willekeurigAfrikaans
• عشوائيArabic
• aleatori, fulanoCatalan, Valencian
• nesouvisející, průměrný, náhodnýCzech
• ar hapWelsh
• tilfældig, ligegyldig, overflødigDanish
• zufälligGerman
• τυχαίοςGreek
• hazardeca, aleatora, arbitra, hazardaEsperanto
• fulano, mucho quilombo, aleatorioSpanish
• juhuslik, suvaline, suvakasEstonian
• تصادفیPersian
• satunnainen, asiaankuulumaton, näennäissatunnainen, irrallinen, tavallinen, tavisFinnish
• aléatoire, sans queue ni tête, pseudo-aléatoire, inconnu, moyen, stochastique, incohérentFrench
• teagmhasach, fánachIrish
• बिना सोचे समझेHindi
• véletlenszerű, véletlenHungarian
• պատահականArmenian
• acakIndonesian
• sconosciuto, nullità, fortuito, casuale, estraneoItalian
• אַקרַאִיHebrew
• 出任せ, 任意, 勝手気まま, 野次馬, 無作為, 適当, 平均的, 不可解, ランダムJapanese
• ಯಾದೃಚ್ om ಿಕKannada
• fortūitusLatin
• zoufällegLuxembourgish, Letzeburgesch
• tupurangiMāori
• псевдослучаен, бесцелен, случаенMacedonian
• таамгаарMongolian
• rawakMalay
• lukraak, willekeurig, toevalligDutch
• tilfelleleg, tilfellelig, tilfeldigNorwegian
• przypadkowy, losowyPolish
• fulano, randômico, joão-ninguém, sicrano, pseudo-randômico, aleatório, beltranoPortuguese
• AleatoriuRomanian
• псевдослучайный, неуместный, произвольный, первый попавшийся, случайныйRussian
• proizvoljno, nasumiceSerbo-Croatian
• tillfällig, slumpmässigSwedish
• சீரற்றTamil
• สุ่มThai
• rasgeleTurkish
• випадковийUkrainian
• ngẫu nhiênVietnamese
• 随机Chinese

Select another language:

adj.

1. Having no specific pattern, purpose, or objective: random movements. See Synonyms at chance.

2. Mathematics & Statistics Of or relating to a type of circumstance or event that is described by a probability distribution.

3. Of or relating to an event in which all outcomes are equally likely, as in the testing of a blood sample for the presence of a substance.

at random

Without a governing design, method, or purpose; unsystematically: chose a card at random from the deck.

adj

1. lacking any definite plan or prearranged order; haphazard: a random selection.

3. informal (of a person) unknown: some random guy waiting for a bus.

n

at random in a purposeless fashion; not following any prearranged order

3. Building Trades.

a. (of building materials) lacking uniformity of dimensions: random shingles.

b. (of ashlar) laid without continuous courses.

c. constructed or applied without regularity: random bond.