snakes and ladders
fast-moving
Chinese whispers
accidental
chance
hazard
fortune
luck
shaking
backsie
go off
go over
come off
slow march
broken-field
bootstrap paradox
action replay
twist and turn
return
coming back
occurrent
find oneself
out of nowhere
vagary
occurrence
flip the script
backward
cold shower
retrograde
natural event
happening
two-way
inadvertent
retroaction
wave
retrogradely
serendipity
erratic
movement
transition
motion
revolving door syndrome
repetition
creeping determinism
reciprocating
alternate
repeat
variance
variant
jolt
jar
discrepancy
randomity
in reverse
stampede
remotion
history repeats itself
heel turn
event
undershift
thrash about
butterfly
calculation
dislocation
twilight zone
coincidental
accidentalism
agitate
disruption
shake
eccentric
inopportune
all over the place like a mad woman's custard
as it is
fortuitous
slip
randomwise
skid
erratically
slue
scene
slew
randy
slide
bechance
backaction
move reflexively
happen
happenstantially
befall
hotch
move involuntarily
chance event
shifty
backhandedness
episode
accident
fast-moving
accidental
broken-field
backward
two-way
inadvertent
erratic
reciprocating
alternate
coincidental
eccentric
inopportune
fortuitous
randomwise
shifty
retrogradely
as it is
erratically
happenstantially
snakes and ladders
Chinese whispers
chance
hazard
fortune
luck
shaking
backsie
slow march
bootstrap paradox
action replay
return
coming back
occurrent
vagary
occurrence
cold shower
retrograde
natural event
happening
retroaction
wave
serendipity
movement
transition
motion
revolving door syndrome
repetition
creeping determinism
repeat
variance
variant
discrepancy
randomity
stampede
remotion
heel turn
event
undershift
calculation
dislocation
accidentalism
disruption
scene
randy
backaction
chance event
backhandedness
episode
accident
go off
go over
come off
twist and turn
find oneself
flip the script
jolt
jar
thrash about
butterfly
twilight zone
agitate
shake
slip
skid
slue
slew
slide
bechance
move reflexively
happen
befall
hotch
move involuntarily
noun
- Any situation where something is changed or misunderstood as a result of passing through successive people or processes.
- A game for several players in which a phrase, whispered by each person in turn to their neighbour, is often unwittingly misunderstood as it is transferred, to humorous effect by the time it reaches the last person and is compared with the original phrase.
adj
- Happening by chance, or unexpectedly; taking place not according to the usual course of things; by accident, unintentional.
- Occurring sometimes, by chance; occasional.
- Being a double point with two distinct tangent planes in 4-dimensional projective space.
- Adjusted by one or two semitones, in temporary departure from the key signature.
- Pertaining to accident and not essence; thus, inessential; incidental; secondary.
- Nonessential to something's inherent nature (especially in Aristotelian thought).
noun
- Those fortuitous effects produced by luminous rays falling on certain objects so that some parts stand forth in abnormal brightness and other parts are cast into a deep shadow.
- A property which is not essential; a nonessential; anything happening accidentally.
- A sharp, flat, or natural, occurring not at the commencement of a piece of music as the signature, but before a particular note.
- Part of a text that has a mainly structural purpose, such as spelling, punctuation, or capitalization.
noun
- an unknown and unpredictable phenomenon that causes an event to result one way rather than another
- a possibility due to a favorable combination of circumstances
- a risk involving danger
- a measure of how likely it is that some event will occur; a number expressing the ratio of favorable cases to the whole number of cases possible
- the possibility of future success
adj
verb
noun
- an unknown and unpredictable phenomenon that causes an event to result one way rather than another
- an unknown and unpredictable phenomenon that leads to a favorable outcome
- a large amount of wealth or prosperity
- your overall circumstances or condition in life (including everything that happens to you)
noun
- the occurrence of a change in direction back in the opposite direction
- document giving the tax collector information about the taxpayer's tax liability
- a coming to or returning home
- getting something back again
- the act of going back to a prior location
- the income or profit arising from such transactions as the sale of land or other property
- happening again (especially at regular intervals)
- a quick reply to a question or remark (especially a witty or critical one)
- the key on electric typewriters or computer keyboards that causes a carriage return and a line feed
- a reciprocal group action
- a tennis stroke that sends the ball back to the other player
- (American football) the act of running back the ball after a kickoff or punt or interception or fumble
- the act of someone appearing again
verb
- go or come back to place, condition, or activity where one has been before
- give back
- go back to a previous state
- go back to something earlier
- bring back to the point of departure
- return in kind
- make a return
- answer back
- be restored
- pay back
- pass down
- elect again
- be inherited by
- return to a previous position; in mathematics
- give or supply
- submit (a report, etc.) to someone in authority
adj
- Acting or moving in the direction opposite to that in which someone or something is facing.
- Acting or moving in the direction opposite to the usual direction of movement.
- Of a pawn, further behind than pawns of the same colour on adjacent files and unable to be moved forward safely.
- Further behind the batsman's popping crease than something else.
- Late or behindhand.
- Situated toward or at the rear of something.
- Lacking progressive or enlightened thought; outdated.
- On that part of the field behind the batsman's popping crease.
- Slow to apprehend; having difficulties in learning.
- Reluctant or unable to advance or act.
- Acting or moving oppositely to the desired direction of progress.
- Reversed in order or sequence.
- Of a culture, country, practice etc., undeveloped or unsophisticated.
adv
- In a direction opposite to the usual direction of movement.
- In a direction opposite to that in which someone or something is facing or normally pointing.
- At, near or towards the rear of something.
- Oppositely to the desired direction of progress, or from a better to a worse state.
- In a reversed orientation; back to front.
- Toward or into the past;
- By way of reflection; reflexively.
- In a reversed order or sequence.
noun
noun
- Something unexpected and often unpleasant which makes one take stock or reconsider something; a sudden change or turn of events.
- A chilly or unenthusiastic reaction to something or someone.
- A shower taken by a person in cold water; as taken for therapeutic reasons, or suggested as a remedy to calm sexual excitement.
noun
- A movement backwards or opposite to the intended or normal motion.
- The reversal of a melody so that what is played first in the original melody is played last, and what is played last in the original melody is played first.
- The apparent movement of a planet across the sky in the opposite direction from its ordinary movement.
- One who opposes social reform, favouring the maintenance of the status quo; a conservative.
adj
- Reverting to an inferior or less developed state; declining, regressing.
- Having a passage of music played backwards.
- Of a celestial body: seeming to move across the sky in the opposite direction from its ordinary movement.
- Of the order of something: inverse, reverse.
- Of a celestial body orbiting another: in the opposite direction to the orbited body's spin.
- Of amnesia: relating to the period leading up to the episode which caused it.
- Of ideas or a person: opposing social reform, favouring the maintenance of the status quo; conservative.
- Directed or moving backwards in relation to the normal or previous direction of travel; retreating.
- Of an animal: appearing to regress to a less developed form during its lifetime.
- Of a metamorphic change: resulting from a decrease in pressure or temperature.
verb
- To cause (a land feature such as a coastline or waterfall) to undergo retrogradation, that is, to travel in the direction of the land or upstream due to erosion.
- To revert to an inferior or less developed state; to decline, to regress.
- Of a celestial body, especially a planet: to show retrogradation; to seem to move across the sky in the opposite direction from its ordinary movement.
- To retreat or withdraw from a position.
- Of a land feature: to travel in the direction of the land or upstream due to erosion.
- To change (minerals, rocks, etc.) metamorphically through a decrease in pressure or temperature.
adv
adj
- Moving or occurring in opposite directions.
- Involving the mutual action or participation of two parties.
- Playing both offense and defense in the same game.
- Having or involving exactly two variables; bivariate.
- Allowing traffic in two directions.
- Permitting communication in two directions, i.e. both transmitting and receiving.
- Utilising both Western and Indigenous knowledge systems; bothways.
noun
noun
- a movement like that of a sudden occurrence or increase in a specified phenomenon
- one of a series of ridges that moves across the surface of a liquid (especially across a large body of water)
- (physics) a movement up and down or back and forth
- something that rises rapidly
- the act of signaling by a movement of the hand
- a hairdo that creates undulations in the hair
- an undulating curve
- a persistent and widespread unusual weather condition (especially of unusual temperatures)
verb
noun
- An unsought, unintended, and/or unexpected, but fortunate, discovery and/or learning experience that happens by accident.
- The occurrence and development of events by chance in a happy or beneficial way.
- A combination of events which have come together by chance to make a surprisingly good or wonderful outcome.
noun
- a natural event that involves a change in the position or location of something
- a change of position that does not entail a change of location
- the act of changing location from one place to another
- a group of people with a common ideology who try together to achieve certain general goals
- a major self-contained part of a symphony or sonata
- a series of actions advancing a principle or tending toward a particular end
- an optical illusion of motion produced by viewing a rapid succession of still pictures of a moving object
- a euphemism for defecation
- a general tendency to change (as of opinion)
- the driving and regulating parts of a mechanism (as of a watch or clock)
- the act of changing the location of something
noun
- A change between forward and backward motion without stopping.
- A word or phrase connecting one part of a discourse to another.
- A published procedure for instrument flight, coming between the departure and en-route phases of flight, or between en-route flight and an approach/landing procedure.
- Professional special education assistance for children or adults in the process of leaving one educational environment or support program for another to relatively more independent living.
- A point mutation in which one base is replaced by another of the same class (purine or pyrimidine); compare transversion.
- Death; passing from life into death.
- The process of change from one form, state, style or place to another.
- A change of key.
- A change from defense to attack, or attack to defense.
- A brief modulation; a passage connecting two themes.
- The process or act of changing from one gender role to another, or of bringing one's outward appearance in line with one's internal gender identity.
- The onset of the final stage of childbirth.
verb
noun
- a natural event that involves a change in the position or location of something
- the use of movements (especially of the hands) to communicate familiar or prearranged signals
- a change of position that does not entail a change of location
- a state of change
- a formal proposal for action made to a deliberative assembly for discussion and vote
- the act of changing location from one place to another
- an optical illusion of motion produced by viewing a rapid succession of still pictures of a moving object
verb
noun
- A situation in which a person or group repeats a cycle of behaviors or experiences, usually with unsuccessful or undesirable results.
- A situation in which employee turnover in an organization is inordinately high.
- A situation in which an individual changes employers, perhaps more than once, switching between (a) employment with the government or with an organization having oversight authority and (b) employment with an organization regulated by or overseen by the other employer.
adj
- Happening by turns; one following the other in succession of time or place; first one and then the other (repeatedly)
- Other; alternative.
- Distributed singly at different heights of the stem, and at equal intervals as respects angular divergence
- Designating the members in a series, which regularly intervene between the members of another series, as the odd or even numbers of the numerals; every other; every second.
verb
- To vary by turns.
- To perform by turns, or in succession; to cause to succeed by turns; to interchange regularly.
- To perform an alternation (removal of alternate vertices) on (a polytope or tessellation); to remove vertices (from a face or edge) as part of an alternation.
- To happen, succeed, or act by turns; to follow reciprocally in place or time; followed by with.
noun
- A substitute; an alternative; one designated to take the place of another, if necessary, in performing some duty.
- A replacement of equal or greater value or function.
- A proportion derived from another proportion by interchanging the means.
- That which alternates with something else; vicissitude.
- Figures or tinctures that succeed each other by turns.
noun
- an event that departs from expectations
- discord that splits a group
- the second moment around the mean; the expected value of the square of the deviations of a random variable from its mean value
- a difference between conflicting facts or claims or opinions
- the quality of being subject to variation
- an official dispensation to act contrary to a rule or regulation (typically a building regulation)
- an activity that varies from a norm or standard
noun
- Any sudden unconcerted moving or acting together of a number of persons, as from some common impulse.
- A wild, headlong scamper, or running away, of a number of animals; usually caused by fright; hence, any sudden flight or dispersion, as of a crowd or an army in consequence of a panic.
- A situation in which many people in a crowd are trying to go in the same direction at the same time.
verb
noun
noun
- An act of turning around abruptly, especially so that one faces the opposite direction.
- A turn executed by shifting weight on to the heel(s).
- A ballroom dancing move in which the dancer steps backwards, shifts their weight on to the back foot, and turns on the heel of that foot while holding the other foot close and parallel to it.
- A situation in which someone changes from being a villain into a hero.
- A radical change (of mind, opinion, etc.).
- Synonym of heel/face turn (“a situation in which a wrestler previously identified as a villain changes to being considered a hero”)
noun
- A change that results in something being not being moved far enough or too few things being moved.
- The strategy or act of positioning defensive players extra far toward the offense's weak side.
- A misalignment resulting from failure to shift gears far enough.
- An underhang caused by seismic shift.
- An unfitted undergarment that covers the torso.
- The amount of displacement in the layers in a crystal lattice that places the layers too close together.
verb
verb
- To cause events after the point of divergence to not happen as they did in real history, and people conceived after the point of divergence to not exist in recognizable form, due to the random variations introduced by the butterfly effect.
- To cut (food) almost entirely in half and spread the halves apart, in a shape suggesting the wings of a butterfly.
- To cut strips of surgical tape or plasters into thin strips, and place across (a gaping wound) to close it.
noun
- A sensation of excited anxiety felt in the stomach.
- The butterfly stroke.
- A type of stretch in which one sits on the ground with the legs folded into a shape like that of a butterfly's wings, slightly rocking them up and down, resembling the wings fluttering.
- A use of surgical tape, cut into thin strips and placed across an open wound to hold it closed.
- A person who changes partners frequently.
- Any of several plane curves that look like a butterfly; see Butterfly curve (transcendental) and Butterfly curve (algebraic).
- A combination of four options of the same type at three strike prices giving limited profit and limited risk.
- A flying insect of the order Lepidoptera, distinguished from moths by their diurnal activity and generally brighter colouring.
- A random change in an aspect of the timeline seemingly unrelated to the primary point of divergence, resulting from the butterfly effect.
verb
- To behave or occur in a confusing or unexpected manner.
- To put or place into an indeterminate position; to be in an ambiguous, undetermined, or improper context.
- To cause to daydream or zone out; to cause to lose attention to one's surroundings.
- To experience or perceive something bizarre or fantastic.
noun
noun
- The belief that events happen by random chance, without cause or purpose.
- Accidental character or effect.
- The belief that outward appearance often contrasts with substance or essence (after Thomas Aquinas).
- A system of medicine based on belief that symptoms of disease are caused by external factors.
verb
- move or cause to move back and forth
- try to stir up public opinion
- cause to be agitated, excited, or roused
- exert oneself continuously, vigorously, or obtrusively to gain an end or engage in a crusade for a certain cause or person; be an advocate for
- move very slightly
- change the arrangement or position of
verb
- move or cause to move back and forth
- move with or as if with a tremor
- shake or vibrate rapidly and intensively
- move back and forth or sideways
- undermine or cause to waver
- stir the feelings, emotions, or peace of
- get rid of
- bring to a specified condition by or as if by shaking
- shake (a body part) to communicate a greeting, feeling, or cognitive state
noun
- building material used as siding or roofing
- frothy drink of milk and flavoring and sometimes fruit or ice cream
- a note that alternates rapidly with another note a semitone above it
- grasping and shaking a person's hand (as to acknowledge an introduction or to agree on a contract)
- a reflex motion caused by cold or fear or excitement
- causing to move repeatedly from side to side
adj
- Deviating from the norm; behaving unexpectedly or differently; unconventional and slightly strange.
- Having a different center; not concentric.
- Against or in the opposite direction of contraction of a muscle (such as results from flexion of the lower arm (bending of the elbow joint) by an external force while contracting the triceps and other elbow extensor muscles to control that movement; opening of the jaw while flexing the masseter).
- Having different goals or motives.
- Not at or in the centre; away from the centre.
- Not perfectly circular; elliptical.
noun
phrase
verb
- move obliquely or sideways, usually in an uncontrolled manner
- move stealthily
- insert inconspicuously or quickly or quietly
- fall to a lower standard
- move smoothly and easily
- to make a mistake or be incorrect
- pass on stealthily
- move easily
- cause to move with a smooth or sliding motion
- pass out of one's memory
- move out of position
noun
- a socially awkward or tactless act
- a minor inadvertent mistake usually observed in speech or writing or in small accidents or memory lapses etc.
- potter's clay that is thinned and used for coating or decorating ceramics
- a part (sometimes a root or leaf or bud) removed from a plant to propagate a new plant through rooting or grafting
- a young and slender person
- a place where a craft can be made fast
- an accidental misstep threatening (or causing) a fall
- a slippery smoothness
- artifact consisting of a narrow flat piece of material
- a small sheet of paper
- a woman's sleeveless undergarment
- bed linen consisting of a cover for a pillow
- an unexpected slide
- a flight maneuver; aircraft slides sideways in the air
- the act of avoiding capture (especially by cunning)
noun
- A combination of objects or events in view or happening at a given moment at a particular place.
- A youth subculture that was popular in Canada and the United States in the 2000s and early 2010s.
- The decorations; furnishings and backgrounds of a stage, representing the place in which the action of a play is set
- A landscape, or part of a landscape; scenery.
- A part of a dramatic work that is set in the same place or time. In the theatre, generally a number of scenes constitute an act.
- The location of an event that attracts attention.
- An element of fiction writing.
- An exhibition of passionate or strong feeling before others, creating embarrassment or disruption; often, an artificial or affected action, or course of action, done for effect; a theatrical display
- A social environment consisting of an informal, vague group of people with a uniting interest; their sphere of activity; a subculture.
- The location, time, circumstances, etc., in which something occurs, or in which the action of a story, play, or the like, is set up
verb
verb
- move obliquely or sideways, usually in an uncontrolled manner
- to pass or move unobtrusively or smoothly
- move smoothly along a surface
noun
- a small flat rectangular piece of glass on which specimens can be mounted for microscopic study
- (geology) the descent of a large mass of earth or rocks or snow etc.
- (music) rapid sliding up or down the musical scale
- plaything consisting of a sloping chute down which children can slide
- the act of moving smoothly along a surface while remaining in contact with it
- a transparency mounted in a frame; viewed with a slide projector
- sloping channel through which things can descend
English words for 'any situation in which people or events go forward and backward, seemingly at random'
As you may have noticed, above you will find words for "any situation in which people or events go forward and backward, seemingly at random". Hover the mouse over the word you'd like to know more about to view its definition. Click 
to find a better fitting word. Finally, thanks to ChatGPT, the overall results have been greatly improved.
Recent Queries
half-truth
foreign language
arc light
To accompany
water caltrop
blindness.
to breathe
stenographer
to turn (into)
cost per thousand
echolocation
equipped (with)
HFCS
spasm.
how old?
Not likely
margin transaction
military law
oleaster
holding of concurrent (official) posts
aggressively greedy.
to shoot up
bedside
a guideline.
recognizable
nonparticipation
nosey parker
screwball
trade union
to boil up
hail of bullets
be quiet!
heirloom
to patronize
ISDN
very young
spotted.
innumerable.
to dissolve
hegemony
pure land
cherished
unruly
To kill
unnoticed
to delay
tour
calmness
to live
To fail