aleatory
- adjective
- /ˌeɪliˈɔːtəri/
- Formal
:
aleatorio
- The winning lottery numbers are always an aleatory set, determined by chance alone.
Examples
-
Model uncertainty sources can be classified into two groups: aleatory and epistemic.
Academic text (2018) -
But in the appointment of faculty, we can rarely expect to be absolutely certain of the soundness of any decision, for the recognition of talent is an aleatory science.
Academic text (1997) -
The result is an aleatory and irregular localization of reading.
Academic text (1999) -
But rather than aleatory effects, the horn sounds are a motif, and thus perform a role within the film's overall formal design.
Academic text (1998) -
Cage has written other kinds of aleatory music, but he and everyone else regard 4'33" as his most important and most visionary work.
Academic text (2000) -
4' 33" is aleatory music inasmuch as chance determines what real-world sounds will fill the silence.
Academic text (2000) -
At once enchanting, aleatory, and anonymous (the "shipwreck of the singular," if I may evoke another poet of the city).
Academic text (2010) -
And a crucial mediation in this aleatory convergence has been the gender system, with no form of gambling surpassing mahjong in the production of masculine values.
Academic text (2007) -
I wish to emphasize that I am not making a simple causal argument in illuminating and juxtaposing the agonistic and aleatory dimensions of national political culture, public culture, and mahjong.
Academic text (2007) -
Gertrude Stein, Raymond Roussel, and Antonin Artaud certainly provide examples of modernisms in which the aleatory, fragmented, or disjunctive crucially figures.
Academic text (2001)
Synonyms
527
3.4
Happening without a plan and by chance
163
4.4
Likely to change suddenly and hard to know in advance
4
9.9
Having events or results that happen by chance you cannot predict
3
6.9
Not certain and likely to be risky
3
6.9
Sometimes works well and sometimes fails depending on luck
1
9.9
A work that uses chance to decide parts, for example in music or art
1
9.6
Happens by chance and is not a natural or planned part of something
Having no single predictable result because chance affects it
Likely to involve risk or an uncertain result
Compounds
- Specialized
Music where some parts are left to chance or the performer's choice during a performance
- Formal
An agreement where one or both sides must act only if an uncertain event happens
How Random
Surface Forms
Morphology
aleatory = alea + ory
The adjective is a learned borrowing from Latin (alea 'chance') with the suffix -ory; the root 'alea' is not a productive or familiar English base, so learners cannot reliably infer the meaning from its parts.
Etymology
The word aleatory comes from the Latin root alea, which means 'dice'. Think of throwing dice in a game: the result is left to 'chance', so aleatory describes something that depends on luck or is unpredictable.