11 September 2009

aleatory

This gem comes from a crossword puzzle. Of course. I love the sound of it, but even more I love the way it makes me feel like I'm reading a story by O. Henry, which reminds me of one of the many wonderful words he used, eleemosynary, which will be entered here forthwith.

Aleatory means "dependent on chance," and thereby describes a great deal of reality.

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Aleatory
Aleatory A"le*a*to*ry, a. [L. aleatorius, fr. alea chance,
die.] (Law)
Depending on some uncertain contingency; as, an aleatory
contract. --Bouvier.
[1913 Webster]

-- From The Collaborative International Dictionary of English v.0.48

aleatory
adj : dependent on chance; "the aleatory element in life"

-- From WordNet (r) 2.0

116 Moby Thesaurus words for "aleatory":
Nachtmusik, absolute music, accidental, adaptation, adventitious,
adventurous, air varie, aleatoric, aleatory music, amorphous,
arrangement, blobby, blurred, blurry, broad, casual, causeless,
chamber music, chamber orchestra, chance, chancy, chaotic,
circumstantial, composition, conditional, confused, contingent,
descant, destinal, dicey, disordered, electronic music, etude,
exercise, fatal, fatidic, fluky, foggy, fortuitous, full of risk,
fuzzy, general, harmonization, hazardous, hazy, hit-or-miss, iffy,
ill-defined, imprecise, inaccurate, inchoate, incidental,
incidental music, incoherent, indecisive, indefinable, indefinite,
indeterminable, indeterminate, indistinct, inessential, inexact,
instrumental music, invention, lax, loose, nocturne, nonessential,
nonspecific, obscure, occasional, opus, orchestration, orderless,
piece, production, program music, provisional, random, ricercar,
riskful, risky, score, shadowed forth, shadowy, shapeless, sonata,
sonatina, speculative, stochastic, string orchestra,
string quartet, study, sweeping, theme and variations, trio,
uncaused, unclear, undefined, undestined, undetermined,
unessential, unexpected, unforeseeable, unforeseen, unlooked-for,
unplain, unpredictable, unspecified, vague, variation, veiled,
venturesome, venturous, wildcat, work



-- From Moby Thesaurus II by Grady Ward, 1.0

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