randomly
Americanadverb
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without definite aim, reason, sense, or pattern.
This poem just seems like a bunch of words randomly put together.
Freckles generally appear randomly on the face and upper shoulders.
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Statistics. in a way that gives each item in a set the equal probability of being chosen.
A survey of 309 women aged 15 to 49 was conducted in nine randomly selected villages.
Other Word Forms
Etymology
Origin of randomly
Explanation
Anything done randomly has no plan or strategy. If you choose your college courses randomly, you may end up studying some unusual topics. Hope you enjoy Advanced History of Cheese-Making! When you pick the name of a prize winner from, you're choosing randomly. In other words, there's no specific method to making the selection; you're simply grabbing a random slip of paper. Sometimes this adverb implies chaos: "Clothes were tossed randomly around her room, while a laundry basket stood empty." This haphazard sense of both randomly and random grew from the original definition, "at great speed."
Example Sentences
Examples are provided to illustrate real-world usage of words in context. Any opinions expressed do not reflect the views of Dictionary.com.
For the current study, researchers randomly assigned 74 adults with overweight or obesity to one of three dietary groups.
From Science Daily ● Aug. 9, 2026
The Rolling Stones have often sold randomly assigned pairs of discounted seats through a program called “Lucky Dip.”
From The Wall Street Journal ● Aug. 4, 2026
The plaintiffs argue the winners were not selected randomly, as Musk had suggested, but chosen because they could serve as effective spokespeople for the group.
From Barron's ● Jul. 30, 2026
He also suggests multiple equivalent question papers allocated randomly, or localised papers, so that a breach in one location does not compromise an entire national examination.
From BBC ● Jul. 29, 2026
On the bus I randomly open my art book to an artist I haven’t seen before.
From "A Mango-Shaped Space" by Wendy Mass
Definitions and idiom definitions from Dictionary.com Unabridged, based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2023
Idioms from The American Heritage® Idioms Dictionary copyright © 2002, 2001, 1995 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company.
