【每日一词】 haphazard - adj. 无计划的，没有条理的 adv. 杂乱无章地，无计划地 n. 偶然

haphazard

1 of 2 adjective : marked by lack of plan, order, or direction

a haphazard assemblage of furniture

not … a collection of haphazard schemes, but rather the orderly component parts of a connected and logical whole

—F. D. Roosevelt

2 of 2 noun : CHANCE sense 1

this little remnant preserved by the haphazard of chance —Edith Hamilton

take our principles at haphazard —John Locke

Did you know?

The hap in haphazard comes from an English word that means "happening," as well as "chance or fortune." Hap, in turn, comes from the Old Norse word happ, meaning "good luck." Perhaps it's no accident that hazard also has its own connotations of chance and luck: while it now refers commonly to something that presents danger, at one time it referred to a dice game similar to craps. (The name ultimately comes from the Arabic word al-zahr, meaning "the die.") Haphazard first entered English as a noun meaning "chance" in the 16th century, and soon afterward was being used as an adjective to describe things with no apparent logic or order.

Synonyms

Adjective

aimless,arbitrary,catch-as-catch-can,desultory,

erratic,helter-skelter,hit-or-miss,random,scattered,slapdash,stray

Examples of haphazard in a Sentence

Adjective

We were given a haphazard tour of the city.

considering the haphazard way you measured the ingredients, it's a wonder the cookies came out this good

Recent Examples on the Web

Adjective

This approach also helps leaders avoid haphazard modernization—replacing outdated systems haphazardly without consideration for the impact and benefit to the overall business strategy and goals.

—Larry English, Forbes, 29 Feb. 2024

The last graves would not be removed until 1947, but most had already been carried off to two of the city’s haphazard pantheons: Evergreen, in Boyle Heights, founded in 1877, and Rosedale-Angelus, opened in 1884 in the then-faraway neighborhood of West Adams.

—Patt Morrison, Los Angeles Times, 27 Feb. 2024