AT RANDOM • DICTIONARY ONE.COM • Definition of At random

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/æt rˈændəm/ Listen

adjective

Random adj.

1.

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. "Some random truths he can impart." "So sharp a spur to the lazy, and so strong a bridle to the random."

2.

(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.

3.

(Construction) Of unequal size or shape; made from components of unequal size or shape.

at random in a manner so that all possible results have an equal probability of occurrence; for processes, each possible result is counted separately although the same type of result may occur more than once.

Random courses (Masonry), courses of stone of unequal thickness.

Random shot, a shot not directed or aimed toward any particular object, or a shot with the muzzle of the gun much elevated.

Random work (Masonry), stonework consisting of stones of unequal sizes fitted together, but not in courses nor always with flat beds.

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Etymology of 'At random'

Collaborative International Dictionary of English 0.48

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"At random" Quotes from Famous Books

... imagination is a conception gradually dying away after the act of sense, and is nothing more than a decaying sensation; that memory is the vestige of former impressions, enduring for a time; that forgetfulness is the obliteration of such vestiges; that the succession of thought is not indifferent, at random, or voluntary, but that thought follows thought in a determinate and predestined sequence; that whatever we imagine is finite, and hence we cannot conceive of the infinite, nor think of anything not subject to sense? Shall we say with Locke that there are two sources of our ideas, ...

— History of the Intellectual Development of Europe, Volume I (of 2) - Revised Edition • John William Draper

... round and sudden stop. I see even those who are pertinent enough, who would, but cannot stop short in their career; for whilst they are seeking out a handsome period to conclude with, they go on at random, straggling about upon impertinent trivialities, as men staggering upon weak legs. But, above all, old men who retain the memory of things past, and forget how often they have told them, are dangerous company; and I have known stories ...

— The Essays of Montaigne, Complete • Michel de Montaigne

... condition. It ought not to have mattered to me that the sister of a millionaire, my employer, should treat me more or less as a lackey; but it did. I threw myself on my bunk and took down a book at random from my little shelf. Out of its pages tumbled an evening news-sheet which I now remembered to have bought of a screaming boy as I hurried into the dock gates on the previous afternoon. I had not had time to look at it in my various ...

— Hurricane Island • H. B. Marriott Watson

... adventuring idly, indulging the amateur spirit, playing a game of hit-or-miss, seeking oracles in those teeming pages. Therefore he did not turn to the pink insert, embodying the alphabetical catalogue (Abdominal Bands to Zither Strings), but opened at random. ...

— Success - A Novel • Samuel Hopkins Adams

... unscrewed. I fell to work. Wherever anything seemed to make a snug fit, I screwed it in. Other remaining things I drove into convenient holes. All the while I begged blind fate to guide me. Then I connected the batteries, supplied the new spark-coil, selected a new spark-plug at random, ...

— The River and I • John G. Neihardt

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