Randomizers

Part of speech: noun

Definitions

1. A tool or mechanism that generates unpredictable outcomes or selections from a given set of data
2. Devices used to introduce variability into processes, often employed in games or algorithms
3. A process or system that creates chance-based results, ensuring diversity and variability in choices made

Etymology: The word "randomizer" is a plain formation: the noun "randomize" plus the agent suffix "-er", meaning a device or process that does the randomizing. The verb underneath it is the more interesting part. "Randomize" is built from "random", which came into English from Old French "randon", meaning a rushing or force of onrush, and traces back to a Frankish root meaning to run or gallop. The original sense was headlong speed, not chance; a "random" was a violent rush, so the notion of something happening without direction came later. The verb "randomize" was formed in English by adding the suffix "-ize", which passed through Late Latin and Middle French from Greek "-izein", a suffix for making or treating something in a certain way. So a randomizer is, in effect, a thing that makes outcomes into the headlong, undirected rush the old word once named.

Synonyms: selectors, choosers, pickers, deciders, assigners