random.
A roving motion; course without definite direction; lack of rule or method; chance.
Meaning & usage
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 party was boring. It was full of randoms.
The direction of a rake-vein.
A frame for composing type.
Where this word comes from
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.
Occurring for no particular reason; haphazard, unpredictable.
Our city is plagued by random acts of violence.
random acts of kindness
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.
The flip of a fair coin is purely random.
The newspaper conducted a random sample of five hundred American teenagers.
Pseudorandom; mimicking the result of random selection.
The rand function generates a random number from a seed.
Selected for no particular reason; arbitrary; unspecified.
A random American off the street couldn't tell the difference.
You're just going to trust the word of random people on the Internet?
Being (part of) a varied, unrelated, and apparently arbitrary collection of things; diverse, heterogeneous.
My notebook has turned into a random collection of thoughts.
I brought a bunch of random snacks, but nothing nutritious.
Apropos of nothing; lacking context, relevance, or any connection to the previous situation; unexpected.
This random guy just came up to me to say that he was a fan of my work.
Thank you for that completely random comment... now, let's get back to our actual topic of discussion.
Of a person: characterized by or often saying random things; habitually using non sequiturs.
You're so random! I never know what you're going to do next.
Being out of the ordinary; unusual or unexpected; odd, strange, bizarre.
That's a rather random fact!
I can't believe he would say that. That's so random!
Where this word comes from
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.
To wander; to stray; to meander.
Where this word comes from
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.
Try it on your idea.
random has 6 characters. Say it out loud, try it alongside a description of your project, and see whether its meaning fits what you want to create.
These are naming prompts. Meanings and pronunciation can vary; existing brand and domain uses have not been checked.
Explore the name generatorA word with a source.
Definitions, grammatical labels, IPA, etymology and examples: Wiktionary contributors, extracted by Kaikki / Wiktextract. Adapted under CC BY-SA 4.0. Selected fields and authored examples are shown; third-party quotations and audio are omitted. See contributor history.
Last enriched 2026-09-10. Definitions are in English. Romanizations are shown when supplied by the source; syllable estimates are omitted for unsupported scripts.