AAELORTY

Word of the Week

A feature wherein TileHead highlights a word that is is especially interesting or unusual (and, incidentally, useful in Scrabble play):

AAELORTY

(unscramble the letters to form this week's word...)

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(answer below, after a little more spoiler space....)

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This week's word is...

ALEATORY (adj.)

• Definition: dependent on chance or luck; dependent on a random event or uncertain contingency; of or characterized by gambling; in law, a contract dependent on a contingent event; in music or art, consisting of random or indeterminate elements

• Front hooks: (none)
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• Anagrams: (none)
• Longer extensions: (none)
• Wraparounds: (none)
• Other Spellings: (none)
• Related Forms: ALEATORIC (adj.)

TileHead Says:

Something ALEATORY is, literally or figuratively, contingent on the throw a die.  It derives from the Latin aleator ("a dice player"), from alea ("a die" or "a dice game").  Legend has it that Julius Caesar cried "Jacta est alea!" ("the die is cast!") when he famously crossed the Rubicon River in 49 BC, starting a civil war.  The historical record is murky on whether he actually said those words, but both "the die is cast" and "crossing the Rubicon" survive today as phrases used to refer to a course of action that has been determined or to any situation beyond the point of no return.

Returning to our English words ALEATORY and ALEATORIC, as used in modern writings:

But then I know it is not true and that the clock in the belly of the alligator is ticking with no relation to what I am thinking or feeling and all is aleatory, disjunctive...
– Edith A. Jenkins, Against a Field Sinister: Memoirs and Stories (1991)

But this story conveys a marvellous feeling for the aleatory, the randomness of life's moments of making sense.
– Article in the West Coast Review (1986)

The pianist, who seemed as drunk as his leader, was doing something atonal and aleatoric; meanwhile drummer and bassist assured the dancers that this was still the dance they had started off to dance.
– Anthony Burgess, Tremor of Intent (1966)

Every Scrabble player is familiar with the concept of ALEATORY events, if not the word itself.  One might argue that a great part of the allure of the game of Scrabble is its near-perfect blending of skill on the one hand and the aleatory element of tile-drawing on the other.  Every game is different, and every dip into the tile bag brings fresh challenges and opportunities.