What does random mean?
Definitions for random
ˈræn dəmran·dom
This dictionary definitions page includes all the possible meanings, example usage and translations of the word random.
Princeton's WordNet
randomadjective
lacking any definite plan or order or purpose; governed by or depending on chance
"a random choice"; "bombs fell at random"; "random movements"
GCIDE
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.
Randomadjective
(Construction) of unequal size or shape; made from components of unequal size or shape.
Wiktionary
randomnoun
Speed, full speed; impetuosity, force.
randomnoun
The full range of a bullet or other projectile; hence, the angle at which a weapon is tilted to allow the greatest range.
randomnoun
An undefined, unknown or unimportant person; a person of no consequence.
The party was boring. It was full of randoms.
randomadjective
Having unpredictable outcomes and, in the ideal case, all outcomes equally probable; resulting from such selection; lacking statistical correlation.
randomadjective
Of or relating to probability distribution.
A toss of loaded dice is still random, though biased.
randomadjective
Pseudorandom in contrast to truly random; mimicking the result of random selection.
The function generates a random number from a seed.
randomadjective
Representative and undistinguished; typical and average; selected for no particular reason.
A random American off the street couldn't tell the difference.
randomadjective
Apropos of nothing; lacking context; unexpected; having apparent lack of plan, cause or reason.
randomadjective
Characterized by or often saying random things; habitually using non sequiturs.
You're so random!
Samuel Johnson's Dictionary
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.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.
Wikipedia
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.
ChatGPT
random
Random refers to a phenomenon or procedure that follows no recognizable or predictable pattern and has outcomes that cannot be precisely determined. It can refer to any event, decision, or process where the outcome is uncertain or subject to chance.
Webster Dictionary
Randomnoun
force; violence
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
Randomnoun
distance to which a missile is cast; range; reach; as, the random of a rifle ball
Randomnoun
the direction of a rake-vein
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
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.]
Wikidata
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 Dictionary
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 Dictionary
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 Gazetteer
random
Distance to which a missile is thrown or projected; range; reach; as, the farthest random of a missile weapon.
Suggested Resources
random
Song lyrics by random -- Explore a large variety of song lyrics performed by random on the Lyrics.com website.
British National Corpus
Spoken Corpus Frequency
Rank popularity for the word 'random' in Spoken Corpus Frequency: #4731
Adjectives Frequency
Rank popularity for the word 'random' in Adjectives Frequency: #647
Usage in printed sourcesFrom:
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Anagrams for random »
mandor
rodman
Numerology
Chaldean Numerology
The numerical value of random in Chaldean Numerology is: 5
Pythagorean Numerology
The numerical value of random in Pythagorean Numerology is: 2
Examples of random in a Sentence
This is one of those random places where you feel like you should have shot better than you did, but you're not out of it, you can make birdies. The problem is there is trouble around every corner.
We need to stay true to who we are. And who we are is a bunch of weirdos that enjoy throwing dinner parties in random locations, my goal for our team, as our team has grown, is that if you tap any one of our employees on the shoulder and you say, ‘What’s the focus?’ They are like, ‘Throwing one hell of a party.’.
Weve not been able to identify any connection between the victims and the suspect, i believe that he was actually picking his targets at random, shooting them in the vehicle.
Beauty is excrescence, superabundance, random ebulience, and sheer delightful waste to be enjoyed in its own right.
No one cares to contact this random ass dude!
Popularity rank by frequency of use
References
Translations for random
From our Multilingual Translation Dictionary
- 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
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