random
Language: English
Part of speech: adj
Pronunciation: enpr: răn'dəm
ipa: /ˈɹændəm/
rhymes: -ændəm
homophone: randem
Forms: form: more random
form: most random
Etymology: From earlier randon, from Middle English randoun, raundon, from Old French randon, from randir (“to run, gallop”) (whence French randonnée (“long walk, hike”)), from Frankish *randiju (“a run, race”) or Old Norse rend (“a run, race”), both from Proto-Germanic *randijō, from *rinnaną (“run”, verb), from Proto-Indo-European *(H)r̥-nw- (“to flow, move, run”). Cognate with Middle Low German uprinden (“to jump up”), Danish rende (“to run”). See run.
Senses: examples: text: Our city is plagued by random acts of violence.
text: random acts of kindness
synonyms: desultory
glosses: Occurring for no particular reason; haphazard, unpredictable.
examples: text: Near-synonyms: aleatory, stochastic
text: The flip of a fair coin is purely random.
text: The newspaper conducted a random sample of five hundred American teenagers.
text: The results of the field survey look random by several different measures.
text: A toss of a loaded die is still random, though biased.
text: July 18 2012, Scott Tobias, AV Club The Dark Knight Riseshttp://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.
topics: mathematics
sciences
statistics
glosses: 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.
examples: text: The rand function generates a random number from a seed.
topics: computing
engineering
mathematics
natural-sciences
physical-sciences
sciences
glosses: Pseudorandom; mimicking the result of random selection.
examples: text: A random American off the street couldn't tell the difference.
text: You're just going to trust the word of random people on the Internet?
text: I didn't have time to peruse the resturant's menu, so I just ordered some random dish.
text: Whatever random hobby you're into, there's an Internet community for it.
glosses: Selected for no particular reason; arbitrary; unspecified.
examples: text: My notebook has turned into a random collection of thoughts.
text: I brought a bunch of random snacks, but nothing nutritious.
text: I mixed a bunch of random vegetables into a salad, and it actually turned out pretty good.
glosses: Being (part of) a varied, unrelated, and apparently arbitrary collection of things; diverse, heterogeneous.
examples: text: This random guy just came up to me to say that he was a fan of my work.
text: Thank you for that completely random comment... now, let's get back to our actual topic of discussion.
text: The teacher's bartending story was interesting, but very random.
text: I feel like pineapple is a very random thing to put on a pizza.
glosses: Apropos of nothing; lacking context, relevance, or any connection to the previous situation; unexpected.
examples: text: You're so random! I never know what you're going to do next.
glosses: Of a person: characterized by or often saying random things; habitually using non sequiturs.
examples: text: That's a rather random fact!
text: I can't believe he would say that. That's so random!
glosses: Being out of the ordinary; unusual or unexpected; odd, strange, bizarre.
Derived terms: sense: terms derived from random (adjective)
word: at random
sense: terms derived from random (adjective)
word: bi-random
sense: terms derived from random (adjective)
word: dynamic random access memory
sense: terms derived from random (adjective)
word: Fischer random chess
sense: terms derived from random (adjective)
word: hypergeometric random variable
sense: terms derived from random (adjective)
word: non-random
sense: terms derived from random (adjective)
word: non-volatile random access memory
sense: terms derived from random (adjective)
word: normal random variable
sense: terms derived from random (adjective)
word: programmed random occurrence
sense: terms derived from random (adjective)
word: pseudorandom
sense: terms derived from random (adjective)
word: rando
sense: terms derived from random (adjective)
word: random-access
sense: terms derived from random (adjective)
word: random access
sense: terms derived from random (adjective)
word: random access memory
sense: terms derived from random (adjective)
word: random-access memory
sense: terms derived from random (adjective)
word: random act of kindness
sense: terms derived from random (adjective)
word: random camping
sense: terms derived from random (adjective)
word: random encounter
sense: terms derived from random (adjective)
word: randomer
sense: terms derived from random (adjective)
word: random forest
sense: terms derived from random (adjective)
word: random function
sense: terms derived from random (adjective)
word: random glucose
sense: terms derived from random (adjective)
word: randomise
sense: terms derived from random (adjective)
word: randomize
sense: terms derived from random (adjective)
word: random-ish
sense: terms derived from random (adjective)
word: random-like
sense: terms derived from random (adjective)
word: randomly
sense: terms derived from random (adjective)
word: randomness
sense: terms derived from random (adjective)
word: random neural network
sense: terms derived from random (adjective)
word: random number
sense: terms derived from random (adjective)
word: random number generator
sense: terms derived from random (adjective)
word: random number god
sense: terms derived from random (adjective)
word: randomosity
sense: terms derived from random (adjective)
word: random process
sense: terms derived from random (adjective)
word: random sample
sense: terms derived from random (adjective)
word: random seed
sense: terms derived from random (adjective)
word: random sequence
sense: terms derived from random (adjective)
word: random telegraph noise
sense: terms derived from random (adjective)
word: random variable
sense: terms derived from random (adjective)
word: random walk
sense: terms derived from random (adjective)
word: random walker
sense: terms derived from random (adjective)
word: resistive random access memory
sense: terms derived from random (adjective)
word: semi-random
sense: terms derived from random (adjective)
word: semirandom
sense: terms derived from random (adjective)
word: standard normal random variable
sense: terms derived from random (adjective)
word: static random access memory