drawing lots
4
3.6
- noun
:
sorteo
- They're drawing lots to decide who is to fight this gentleman... who has not insulted anybody.
- decide by drawing lots
Examples
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- Since all of us are eminently qualified to be observers, I suggest that a crew be selected by drawing lots.
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I suggest we all draw lots for partners.
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We drew lots for it, and I got the short match.
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We drew lots for it.
Fiction book (1996) -
Why don't we draw lots for it?
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When writing joint publications, the order of authors would be decided by drawing lots unless one particular person played a dominant role in preparing the material.
Academic text (1994) -
To fairly decide who gets the last piece of cake, we are drawing lots.
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The students decided to resolve their debate by drawing lots for who would present first.
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During the community meeting, the leaders will be drawing lots to choose a guest speaker.
Synonyms
115
4.1
An act of choosing someone or something by chance
3
3.8
An event where winners are chosen by chance from tickets
1
7.6
A way of choosing by picking small things like straws or stones so the result is random
Choosing who gets something by chance, for example by drawing lots
Choosing people or making decisions by drawing names from a hat
Antonyms
How Random
Surface Forms
Morphology
The meaning 'deciding by chance' is directly and literally derived from combining 'drawing' (selecting at random) with 'lots' (items drawn), so a learner who knows both constituent words can infer the procedure. This is a common, cross-linguistic way to decide by chance and follows straightforward compositional logic, making it immediately comprehensible to a B1 learner.
Etymology
The phrase drawing lots comes from people putting straws, pebbles, or paper slips into a hat or bowl and having each person draw a lot to see who was chosen. So it means 'to decide by chance'.