Definition of RANDOM

random

Plural: randoms

Adjective

  • lacking any definite plan or order or purpose; governed by or depending on chance
    • "a random choice"
    • "bombs fell at random"
    • "random movements"

Noun

  • A haphazard course or direction; also, done without definite aim.
  • A roving motion; course without definite direction; lack of rule or method; chance.
  • Speed, full speed; impetuosity, force.
  • The full range of a bullet or other projectile; hence, the angle at which a weapon is tilted to allow the greatest range.
  • An undefined, unknown or unimportant person; a person of no consequence.
  • The direction of a rake-vein.
  • A frame for composing type.

Adj

  • Occurring for no particular reason; haphazard, unpredictable.
  • 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.
  • Pseudorandom; mimicking the result of random selection.
  • Selected for no particular reason; arbitrary; unspecified.
  • Being (part of) a varied, unrelated, and apparently arbitrary collection of things; diverse, heterogeneous.
  • Apropos of nothing; lacking context, relevance, or any connection to the previous situation; unexpected.
  • Of a person: characterized by or often saying random things; habitually using non sequiturs.
  • Being out of the ordinary; unusual or unexpected; odd, strange, bizarre.

Verb

  • To wander; to stray; to meander.

Examples

  • A random American off the street couldn't tell the difference.
  • A toss of a loaded die is still random, though biased.
  • He often chose his first Words With Friends play at random, letting the tiles decide.
  • I brought a bunch of random snacks, but nothing nutritious.
  • I can't believe he would say that. That's so random!
  • I didn't have time to peruse the resturant's menu, so I just ordered some random dish.
  • I feel like pineapple is a very random thing to put on a pizza.
  • I mixed a bunch of random vegetables into a salad, and it actually turned out pretty good.
  • My notebook has turned into a random collection of thoughts.
  • Our city is plagued by random acts of violence.
  • random acts of kindness
  • Thank you for that completely random comment... now, let's get back to our actual topic of discussion.
  • That's a rather random fact!
  • The flip of a fair coin is purely random.
  • The newspaper conducted a random sample of five hundred American teenagers.
  • The party was boring. It was full of randoms.
  • The rand function generates a random number from a seed.
  • The results of the field survey look random by several different measures.
  • The teacher's bartending story was interesting, but very random.
  • This random guy just came up to me to say that he was a fan of my work.
  • Whatever random hobby you're into, there's an Internet community for it.
  • You're just going to trust the word of random people on the Internet?
  • You're so random! I never know what you're going to do next.

Origin / 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.

Antonyms

nonrandom

Scrabble Score: 9

random: valid Scrabble (US) TWL Word
random: valid Scrabble Word in Merriam-Webster MW Dictionary
random: valid Scrabble Word in International Collins CSW Dictionary

Words With Friends Score: 11

random: valid Words With Friends Word