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random

Pronunciation: /ˈrandəm/
Translate random | into French | into German | into Italian | into Spanish
Definition of random

adjective

  • 1made, done, or happening without method or conscious decision:apparently random violence
  • Statistics governed by or involving equal chances for each item:a random sample of 100 households
  • (of masonry) with stones of irregular size and shape.
  • 2 informal odd, unusual, or unexpected:the class was hard but he was so random that it was always fun

Phrases

at random

without method or conscious decision:he opened the book at random

Derivatives

randomly

adverb

randomness

noun

Origin:

Middle English (in the sense 'impetuous headlong rush'): from Old French randon 'great speed', from randir 'gallop', from a Germanic root shared by rand2

random in other Oxford dictionaries

Definition of random in the US English dictionary