What is the French for “derandomization”?

Well, in fact, it should be nothing else than dérandomisation. En effet, the Grand Robert tells us that randomisation was introduced in French by a person named Piéron in 1957, from the English, but adds that this word comes from the same old-French root randon which led to “random”, and (in French) to randonnéee (meaning a walk, usually a long country or mountain walk). Following to the etymology of randonnée, we read:

XIIe; du v. randonner (XIIe; – 1. Randonner) tiré des expressions à randon, de randon «avec impétuosité, violence» (randon au sens de «mouvement impétueux» est encore chez La Fontaine), de l’anc. franç. randir «courir avec impétuosité», du francique *rant (Wartburg) ou d’un comp. en re- de l’anc. franç. ander, du bas lat. *ambitare «courir» (Guiraud).

the beginning of which translates to

12th Century; from the verb. randonner (12th Century, see Randonner) coming from the expressions à randon, de randon, meaning “impetuously, violently” (randon in the sense of “impetuous movement” is still in La Fontaine), ….

This is of course confirmed by the O.E.D.

Published by

Kowalski

I am a professor of mathematics at ETH Zürich since 2008.

One thought on “What is the French for “derandomization”?”

  1. Thank you Kowalski for this enlightment!

    So funny: as blogger for a “randonnée” website, I have always written about advice for trekkers or hiking but never thought about this word’s etymology!

    Funny and very interesting, thanks again.

    G.

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