English
random
Etymology

From earlier randon, from Middle English randoun, raundon, from Old French randon, from randir (whence French randonnée ("long walk, hike")), from Frankish *randiju or Old Norse rend, both from Proto-Germanic *randijō, from *rinnaną ("run"), from Proto-Indo-European *h₃er-.

Pronunciation
  • enPR: răn'dəm, IPA: /ˈɹændəm/
Noun

random

  1. A roving motion; course without definite direction; lack of rule or method; chance.
  2. (obsolete) Speed, full speed; impetuosity, force. [14th]
    Synonyms: force, momentum, speed, velocity
    • 1485, Sir Thomas Malory, chapter [https://quod.lib.umich.edu/c/cme/MaloryWks2/1:3.8?rgn=div2;view=fulltext X], in Le Morte Darthur, book I:
      they were messagers vnto kyng Ban & Bors sent from kynge Arthur / therfor said the viij knyghtes ye shalle dye or be prysoners / for we ben knyghtes of kyng Claudas And therwith two of them dressid theire sperys / and Vlfyus and Brastias dressid theire speres and ranne to gyder with grete raundon
      they were messengers unto King Ban and Bors sent from King Arthur. Therefore, said the eight knights, ye shall die or be prisoners, for we be knights of King Claudas. And therewith two of them dressed their spears, and Ulfius and Brastias dressed their spears, and ran together with great random.
  3. (obsolete) The full range of a bullet or other projectile; hence, the angle at which a weapon is tilted to allow the greatest range. [16th]
  4. (figuratively, colloquial) An undefined, unknown or unimportant person; a person of no consequence. [from 20th c.]
    Synonyms: rando, nobody, nonentity
    The party was boring. It was full of randoms.
  5. (mining) The direction of a rake-vein.
  6. (printing, historical) A frame for composing type.
    • 2002, Republic of Korea, number 2, page 502:
      Printers' frames and randoms
Translations Translations Adjective

random

  1. Occurring for no particular reason; haphazard, unpredictable.
    Our city is plagued by random acts of violence.
    random acts of kindness
  2. (statistics) Involving an outcome which is impossible to predict, but which may be represented by a probability distribution; in the ideal case, involving outcomes which are equally likely.
    Near-synonyms: aleatory, stochastic
    The flip of a fair coin is purely random.
    The newspaper conducted a random sample of five hundred American teenagers.
    The results of the field survey look random by several different measures.
    A toss of a loaded die is still random, though biased.
    • July 18 2012, Scott Tobias, AV Club The Dark Knight Rises[http://www.avclub.com/articles/the-dark-knight-rises-review-batman,82624/]
      Where the Joker preys on our fears of random, irrational acts of terror, Bane has an all-consuming, dictatorial agenda that’s more stable and permanent, a New World Order that’s been planned out with the precision of a military coup.
  3. (computing) Pseudorandom; mimicking the result of random selection.
    The rand function generates a random number from a seed.
  4. (informal) Selected for no particular reason; arbitrary; unspecified.
    A random American off the street couldn't tell the difference.
    You're just going to trust the word of random people on the Internet?
    I didn't have time to peruse the resturant's menu, so I just ordered some random dish.
    Whatever random hobby you're into, there's an Internet community for it.
  5. (informal) Being (part of) a varied, unrelated, and apparently arbitrary collection of things; diverse, heterogeneous.
    My notebook has turned into a random collection of thoughts.
    I brought a bunch of random snacks, but nothing nutritious.
    I mixed a bunch of random vegetables into a salad, and it actually turned out pretty good.
  6. (informal) Apropos of nothing; lacking context, relevance or any connection to the previous situation; unexpected.
    This random guy just came up to me to say that he was a fan of my work.
    Thank you for that completely random comment... now, let's get back to our actual topic of discussion.
    The teacher's bartending story was interesting, but very random.
    I feel like pineapple is a very random thing to put on a pizza.
  7. (informal) Of a person: characterized by or often saying random things; habitually using non sequiturs.
    You're so random! I never know what you're going to do next.
  8. (UK, slang) Being out of the ordinary; unusual or unexpected; odd, strange, bizarre.
    That's a rather random fact!
    I can't believe he would say that. That's so random!
Translations Translations Translations Translations Translations

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