rand

The border of an area of land, now especially marshland.

Noun

  1. The border of an area of land, now especially marshland.
    • at the wald's rand; the rand of the marsh
    • Outside the rand or steep edge of this dome the bog is permanently ringed around by a zone liable to base-rich flooding, and this zone, the lagg, carries a persistent fen or carr vegetation. - 1963, Field Studies...
    • Lagg (1) Marginal zone outside the rand containing fen vegetation and representing the transition between raised bog peat and mineral soils. - 1984, Herman W. Gabriel, Glossary of Landscape & Vegetation Ecology for...

    Coordinate Terms: lagg

  2. A strip of meat; a long fleshy piece of beef, cut from the flank or leg; a sort of steak.
    • They came with chopping-knives / To cut me into rands and sirloins - 1621 (first performance), John Fletcher, “The Wild-Goose Chase; a Comedy”, in Comedies and Tragedies […], London: […] Humphrey Robinson, […], and for...
  3. A border, edge or rim; a strip, as of cloth.
    • They quarrelled an' fought 'mang the clippin's an' rands, / The tailor insistin' the colour was blue. - 1867, Anderson, Rhymes, page 44
  4. A strip of leather used to fit the heels of a shoe.
  5. A single rod woven in and out of the stakes.

Origin

From Middle English rand, from Old English rand (“edge, border, margin, rim, shore”), from Proto-West Germanic *rand, from Proto-Germanic *randaz, *randō (“edge, rim, crust”), from Proto-Indo-European *rem- (“to rest, prop or support oneself”). Cognate with Dutch rand (“edge, border, outskirts, rim”), German Rand (“edge, border, margin, rim, outskirts”), Swedish rand (“rand, stripe, edge, verge”). Related to rind.

Forms

rands

Noun Entry 2

  1. A rocky slope, especially the area over a river valley; specifically, the Rand
  2. The currency of South Africa, divided into 100 cents.

Origin

Named after Witwatersrand; the last element is Afrikaans rand (“ridge”), from Dutch rand, from Old Saxon rand, from Germanic *randaz. Compare Etymology 1, and Rand. The sense of currency is because of gold that was extracted from the Witwatersrand rocks.

Forms

rands rand

Noun computing, engineering

  1. A random number.

Origin

Shortened from random.

Forms

rands

Verb

  1. To rant; to storm.
    • […] I ſmelt out my noble ſtincker Greenſheild in his Chamber, and as tho my heart ſtringes had bin crackt, I vvept, & thumpd, and thumpd, and rau'd and randed, and raild, and told him hovv my vvife vvas novv grovvne as...

Origin

See rant.

Forms

rands randing randed