English
random
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-17thc.]
    • 1485, Sir Thomas Malory, [http://quod.lib.umich.edu/c/cme/MaloryWks2/1:3.8?rgn=div2;view=fulltext chapter 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
  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-19thc.]
    • 1624, John Smith, Generall Historie, in Kupperman 1988, page 144:
      Fortie yards will they shoot levell, or very neare the marke, and 120 is their best at Random.
  4. (figuratively, colloquial) An undefined, unknown or unimportant person; a person of no consequence. [from 20thc.]
    The party was boring. It was full of randoms.
  5. (mining) The direction of a rake-vein.
Synonyms Translations Adjective

random

  1. Having unpredictable outcomes and, in the ideal case, all outcomes equally probable; resulting from such selection; lacking statistical correlation.
    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.
    • 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.
  2. (mathematics) Of or relating to probability distribution.
    A toss of loaded dice is still random, though biased.
  3. (computing) Pseudorandom; mimicking the result of random selection.
    The rand function generates a random number from a seed.
  4. (somewhat colloquial) Representative and undistinguished; typical and average; selected for no particular reason.
    A random American off the street couldn't tell the difference.
  5. (somewhat colloquial) Apropos of nothing; lacking context; unexpected; having apparent lack of plan, cause or reason.
    That was a completely random comment.
    The teacher's bartending story was interesting, but random.
    The narrative takes a random course.
  6. (colloquial) Characterized by or often saying random things; habitually using non sequiturs.
    You're so random!
Synonyms Translations Translations Translations
  • French: pseudo-aléatoire
  • Portuguese: aleatório, randômico, pseudo-randômico
  • Russian: случа́йный
Translations Translations

This text is extracted from the Wiktionary and it is available under the CC BY-SA 3.0 license | Terms and conditions | Privacy policy 0.003
Offline English dictionary