Search

Law. depending on a contingent event:
an aleatory contract.
of or relating to accidental causes; of luck or chance; unpredictable:
an aleatory element.
Music. employing the element of chance in the choice of tones, rests, durations, rhythms, dynamics, etc.
Historical Examples

The aleatory element has always been the connecting link between the struggle for existence and religion.
Folkways William Graham Sumner

It was only by religious rites that the aleatory element in the struggle for existence could be controlled.
Folkways William Graham Sumner

There is a great change in the mores of the entire modern society about the aleatory element.
Folkways William Graham Sumner

The folkways, deeply concerned in the aleatory interest, work out the applications.
Folkways William Graham Sumner

This was the aleatory element in life, the element of risk and loss, good or bad fortune.
Folkways William Graham Sumner

There is behind them an assumption as to the character and logic of the superior powers who rule the aleatory interest.
Folkways William Graham Sumner

At best the actor’s is an aleatory profession and, as in all games of chance, the losses score highest.
My Actor-Husband Anonymous

Religion, in its connection with marriage, takes its function from the aleatory interest.
Folkways William Graham Sumner

The aleatory element still remains, and it is still irrational, but the attitude of men towards it is changed.
Folkways William Graham Sumner

Some are aleatory, but the light-minded or interested alone call them so.
Decadence and Other Essays on the Culture of Ideas Remy de Gourmont

adjective
dependent on chance
(esp of a musical composition) involving elements chosen at random by the performer
adj.

“of uncertain outcome,” literally “depending on the throw of a die,” 1690s, from Latin aleatorius “pertaining to a gamester,” from aleator “a dice player,” from alea “a game with dice; chance, hazard, risk; a die, the dice;” perhaps literally “a joint-bone, a pivot-bone,” and related to axis.