AT RANDOM • E-FREE TRANSLATION.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

... writing a book? No, indeed! This is only a record of my heart's life, written at random and carelessly thrown aside, sheet after sheet, sibylline leaves from the great book of fate. The wind may blow them away, a spark consume them. I may myself commit them to the flames. I am tempted to do so at ...

— Ernest Linwood - or, The Inner Life of the Author • Caroline Lee Hentz

... the Avenue, turning east. Now all plans concerning Broadway were given up; also, he felt no anxiety about getting lost. For he went at random. ...

— The Rich Little Poor Boy • Eleanor Gates

... had happened in consequence of Henri having omitted to replace the stopper of his powder-horn, and when, in his anxiety for Joe, he fired at random amongst the Indians, despite Dick's entreaties to wait, a spark communicated with the powder-horn and blew him up. Dick and Crusoe were only a little singed, but the former was not disposed to quarrel with an accident which had sent their enemies ...

— The Dog Crusoe and His Master - A Story of Adventure in the Western Prairies • Robert Michael Ballantyne

... took the book which he had been urging upon me, at which Harriet coughed meaningly to attract my attention. She knew the danger when I really got my hands on a book. But I made up as innocent as a child. I opened the book almost at random—and it was as though, walking down a strange road, I had come upon an old tried friend not seen before in years. For there on the ...

— Adventures In Contentment • David Grayson

... last glimpse of Browning at Asolo, where the master-spell of Italy first touched his genius, and whither at the end he came—"asolare, to disport in the open air, amuse one's self at random"—at heart and in temper of the same unquenched and unquenchable vitality as on that summer day long ago when he sat where Milton had sat, and pressed, as Milton had pressed, the keys of ...

— From the Easy Chair, vol. 1 • George William Curtis

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