chaotic

adjective

cha·​ot·​ic kā-ˈä-tik 

1

: marked by chaos or being in a state of chaos : completely confused or disordered

a chaotic political race

After he became famous, his life became even more chaotic.

They may look chaotic and barbaric, but scrums are a critical and strategic part of the game, and they unfold and escalate according to hockey's venerated, unwritten rules of engagement.

—David Fleming

To the uninitiated visitor, the seemingly chaotic energy of a typical Thai market may give the impression of a free-for-all, …

—Diane Ruengsom

2

mathematics : having outcomes that can vary widely due to extremely small changes in initial conditions

In other words, what comes out of the program's equations is extremely sensitive to what goes in. And that, as any mathematician would recognize, is one of the hallmarks of chaotic systems.

—Ingrid Wickelgren

A physical system—a weather system, say—is chaotic if a very slight change in initial conditions sends the system off on a very different course.

—Physics Today

chaotically

kā-ˈä-ti-k(ə-)lē 

adverb

a chaotically busy scene

Synonyms

• cluttered
• confused
• disarranged
• disarrayed
• disheveled
• dishevelled
• disordered
• disorderly
• higgledy-piggledy
• hugger-mugger
• jumbled
• littered
• messed
• messy
• muddled
• mussed
• mussy
• pell-mell
• rumpled
• sloppy
• topsy-turvy
• tousled
• tumbled
• unkempt
• untidy
• upside-down

Examples of chaotic in a Sentence

a chaotic cellar sorely in need of some straightening up

Recent Examples on the Web

The 2021 withdrawal was unacceptably chaotic and bloody, the takeover by the Taliban shameful, but that war is now over. —New York Daily News Editorial Board, New York Daily News, 26 May 2025

No dogs will be allowed because Matthews didn’t want dogs’ first experience at the facility to be chaotic and filled with stress. —Sean Krofssik, Hartford Courant, 25 May 2025

Maryland is moving on from those chaotic last two months. —Taylor Lyons, Baltimore Sun, 22 May 2025

President Donald Trump fuels the fear by trolling immigrant communities with sinister Valentine cards, dangling self-deportation incentives and implementing a chaotic enforcement strategy that ignores attempts at judicial oversight. —G. Cristina Mora, Mercury News, 22 May 2025

Word History

First Known Use

1688, in the meaning defined at sense 1

Rhymes for chaotic

• aprotic
• aquatic
• biotic
• cirrhotic
• despotic
• dichotic
• erotic
• euphotic
• exotic
• fibrotic
• hieratic
• hypnotic