drawing lots

1. 1.

   making a chance decision by using lots (straws or pebbles etc.) that are thrown or drawn

   Synonymscasting lotssortition

   Broaderdecision

Questions about drawing lots

What does drawing lots mean?

drawing lots means "making a chance decision by using lots (straws or pebbles etc.) that are thrown or drawn".

What is another word for drawing lots?

Close synonyms include casting lots, sortition. Each sense on this page lists its own synonyms, because a word with several meanings rarely has one substitute that works for all of them.

Is drawing lots a common word?

drawing lots is banded "Rare" — specialist or archaic — most readers will not have met it. The band comes from how often the word appears in a large corpus of everyday English, not from an editor's impression.