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random

   Also found in: Dictionary/thesaurus, Medical, Financial, Acronyms, Wikipedia, Hutchinson 0.03 sec.
1.random - Unpredictable (closest to mathematical definition); weird. "The system's been behaving pretty randomly."
2.random - Assorted; undistinguished. "Who was at the conference?" "Just a bunch of random business types."
3.random - (pejorative) Frivolous; unproductive; undirected. "He's just a random loser."
4.random - Incoherent or inelegant; poorly chosen; not well organised. "The program has a random set of misfeatures." "That's a random name for that function." "Well, all the names were chosen pretty randomly."
5.random - In no particular order, though deterministic. "The I/O channels are in a pool, and when a file is opened one is chosen randomly."
6.random - Arbitrary. "It generates a random name for the scratch file."
7.random - Gratuitously wrong, i.e. poorly done and for no good apparent reason. For example, a program that handles file name defaulting in a particularly useless way, or an assembler routine that could easily have been coded using only three registers, but redundantly uses seven for values with non-overlapping lifetimes, so that no one else can invoke it without first saving four extra registers. What randomness!
8.random - A random hacker; used particularly of high-school students who soak up computer time and generally get in the way.
9.random - Anyone who is not a hacker (or, sometimes, anyone not known to the hacker speaking). "I went to the talk, but the audience was full of randoms asking bogus questions".

10. (occasional MIT usage) One who lives at Random Hall. See also J. Random, some random X.

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Next day you repeat the experiment, and you find that the cat gets out much more quickly than the first time, although it still makes some random movements.
She was splendid and robust, and had never appeared handsomer than in the old blue gown, with a red silk handkerchief knotted at random around her head to protect her hair from the dust.
It occurred to me, now, as it ought to have done before, that as the table was round, it was therefore of no value as a base to aim from; so I moved off once more, and at random among the wilderness of chairs and sofas-- wandering off into unfamiliar regions, and presently knocked a candlestick and knocked off a lamp, grabbed at the lamp and knocked off a water pitcher with a rattling crash, and thought to myself, "I've found you at last--I judged I was close upon you.
 
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