ALEATORY

[Slava]

Today's Good Word:

• aleatory •

Pronunciation: ey-li-ê-tor-ee • Hear it!

Part of Speech: Adjective

Meaning: 1. Lucky, chancy, dependent on chance or fortune rather than planned. 2. Related to or characterized by gambling.

Notes: Although this word contains a fairly common suffix (-ory), it is a lexical orphan. We can, of course, form the adverb, aleatorily, but no one seems to have ventured near a noun like aleatoriness. Today's is a somewhat awkward word, so it is probably better not to try the derivational possibilities in public.

In Play: The words lucky and chancy sound a bit slangy in referring to an enterprise that involves chance: "The manager of our team liked making such aleatory calls as a bunt with the bases loaded." Some people are frightened by the aleatory aspects of life while others live for them: "Henrietta tries to avoid such aleatory processes as elections and jury trials."

Word History: Today's Good Word comes directly from Latin aleatorius, the adjective of aleator "gambler", a noun derived from alea "a die, a game of chance". It is related to Greek alea "an escape". Not much else is known about this root (*al-), except that it was identical or very similar to several others with meanings so remote from each other that connections cannot be reliably made. (We at alphaDictionary hope that "10" is the lucky number of everyone reading this and wish you all aleatory good fortune today. We especially wish good fortune to Gail Rallens of the Alpha Agora, who contributed today's woefully underused Good Word.)

[Perry]

It sound so much loftier than gambling.

[Slava]

It sound so much loftier than gambling.

And it comes with "ale."