Words / A / General

aleatory

/ˈeɪliətəri/

C2CEFR level
90/100Rarity: very rare
TechnicalRegister

General adjective

Depending on chance, luck, or an uncertain outcome.

Life, he insisted, was an aleatory affair, its finest moments arriving unbidden.

Similar: random, fortuitous

Origin: From Latin aleatorius 'of a gambler', from alea 'dice'.

Topic: chance in General English

Law adjective

Depending for its effect on an uncertain future event.

An insurance policy is aleatory, since the insurer's liability turns on a contingency that may never occur.

Similar: contingent, uncertain

Topic: Contracts in Legal English

Rarity runs from 0 (a word everyone knows) to 100 (almost never seen outside specialist or literary writing). Level is the word's real difficulty on the CEFR scale, from A1 to C2.

Get words like aleatory on your lock screen, a few a day, with review that makes them stick.

Download on the App Store Lexfall puts a new word on your home and lock screen through widgets, so you learn without opening an app. Free to download. After a free trial, a subscription unlocks every field. Built for iPhone, iOS 15.1 or later.
QR code that opens Lexfall on the App Store
On a computer?Scan with your iPhone camera.

More general words: chance