randomly-assigned
|ran-dom-ly-as-signed|
/ˈrændəmli əˈsaɪnd/
(assign)
allocate task
Etymology
'randomly-assigned' originates from English components, specifically 'randomly' and 'assigned'. 'random' comes from Old French 'randon' meaning 'great speed, impetuosity'; the adverbial suffix '-ly' forms 'randomly'. 'assign' traces to Latin 'assignare', where 'ad-' meant 'to/toward' and 'signare' meant 'to mark, to allot.'
'assignare' became Old French 'assigner', passed into Middle English 'assignen/assigne', yielding modern 'assign'. Old French 'randon' entered Middle English as 'random' and later yielded 'randomly' with '-ly'. These combined in modern English as 'randomly assigned', which in attributive position is commonly hyphenated as 'randomly-assigned'.
Originally, 'random' meant 'impetuosity/great speed' but shifted to 'haphazard/by chance'. Combined with 'assign', the phrase came to denote allocation determined by chance in modern scientific and statistical usage.
Meanings by Part of Speech
Adjective 1
allocated or placed into groups by chance; used especially in experiments or studies to reduce bias.
The study compared outcomes across randomly-assigned groups to minimize selection bias.
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Last updated: 2025/08/10 16:46