- random
- random, haphazard, chance, chancy, casual, desultory, hit-or-miss, happy-go-lucky are comparable when they mean having a cause or a character that is determined by accident rather than by design or by method.What is random comes, goes, occurs, or is done or made without a fixed or clearly defined aim, purpose, or evidence of method or system or direction; the term implies an absence of guidance by a governing mind, eye, or objective{
a random shot
}{a random answer to a question
}{my choice was as random as blindman's buff— Burns
}{the tail end of the conference was becoming frayed and random— Rand
}{the clerks become tired and bored and start making random mistakes— Martin Gardner
}What is haphazard is done, made, arranged, used, or said without concern or without sufficient concern for its fitness, its effectiveness, or its possible ill effects, and is more or less at the mercy of chance or whim or of natural or logical necessity{a haphazard policy
}{the disorder . . . the haphazard scattering of stray socks, shirts and collars, old shoes, and unpressed trousers— Wolfe
}{not . . . a collection of haphazard schemes, but rather the orderly component parts of a connected and logical whole— Roosevelt
}What is described as chance comes or happens to one or is done or made by one without prearrangement or preawareness or without preparation; the term is applicable not only to things but to persons with whom one comes into contact more or less by accident{a chance acquaintance
}{a chance meeting with an old friend
}{found it increasingly difficult to welcome chance visitors with his usual affability— Graves
}What is chancy involves uncertainty and risk because its results, actions, responses, or condition cannot be predicted; the term applies more often to situations and things than to persons{a chancy road to take at night
}{a chancy appeal, at best, to the shifting and unguessable sympathies of their readers— Morse
}{despite recent advances in geophysics, oil drilling is still a chancy business— Kane
}What is casual (see also ACCIDENTAL) leaves or seems to leave things to chance, and works, acts, comes, or goes haphazardly or by chance, or without method or deliberation or indication of intent or purpose; the term often also suggests off- handedness{a casual remark
}{his treatment of his friends is casual
}or lightness or spontaneity{she was constantly referring to dear friends ... in a casual and familiar way— Ellis
}or lack of definiteness in terms or intention{their policy was opportunist at home and casual abroad—Spectator
}{the casual allusion, the chance reference to her— Henry Adams
}What is desultory is not governed by method or system but jumps or skips erratically from one thing to another; the term may imply additionally such consequences as irregular or inconsistent performance or lack of continuity or plan or persistence{make reading have a purpose instead of being desultory— Russell
}{its growth from 1900 to 1950 had been desultory— Michener
}{a dragged-out ordeal of worry, aimless wandering, and desultory shopping— Wouk
}What is hit-or-miss is so haphazard in its character or operation as to be or appear so wholly lacking in plan, aim, system, or care that one is indifferent as to how it turns out or as to what pattern or arrangement it makes{hit-or-miss patchwork
}{a hit-or-miss policy was pursued by the Department of Justice— Ripley
}{his . . . training had given him a profound prejudice against inexact work, experimental work, hit-or-miss work— Forester
}A person is happy-go-lucky who leaves everything to chance or who accepts with happiness or easy indifference whatever comes; a thing is happy-go-lucky that is governed by such a disposition{a radical pragmatist on the other hand is a happy-go-lucky . . . sort of creature— J a mes
}{a funny little happy-go-lucky native-managed railway— Kipling
}Analogous words: fortuitous, *accidental, casual: vagrant, vagabond, truant (see corresponding nouns at VAGABOND)
New Dictionary of Synonyms. 2014.
