Stochastic
Etymology
From Greek stochastikos, "able to guess, skilled at aiming," from stochos, "a target or aim." The original idea was skillful conjecture toward a mark. Probability theory adopted it for processes driven by randomness, and it now labels any system best described by chance rather than fixed cause.
noun · /stoh-KAS-tik/
The quality of being governed by chance, so individual outcomes are random even when their overall pattern follows predictable odds.
What it names
The mindset that treats a run of results as draws from a distribution — where any single outcome tells you little, but the pattern over many is reliable.
Example
Job hunting is stochastic — any single rejection means almost nothing, so the only sane move is to keep taking more shots.
Related idea
Stochastic systems are random but statistically well-behaved; chaotic ones are fully deterministic yet so sensitive to starting conditions that they look random.