shuffled

Shuffled is the past tense of shuffle and can also function as an adjective describing something moved, mixed, or arranged in a non-smooth or random order. The term is used across different domains, including physical movement, games, music, and computing.

In everyday language, to shuffle means to move by sliding the feet without lifting them fully, producing a subdued, irregular gait. Shuffling is also a term in dance and performance for methods that blend steps or movements in a restrained way.

In card games, shuffling refers to mixing a deck to randomize the order of the cards before dealing. Common physical methods include overhand shuffles and riffling shuffles. In computing and data processing, shuffle describes randomizing the order of elements, such as rows in a dataset or tracks in a media playlist.

In music, a shuffle (or swung rhythm) is a way of interpreting pairs of notes as a long-short pattern rather than even subdivisions. This feel is central to many blues, jazz, and rock styles and gives a sense of propulsion and groove.

In computer science, shuffle algorithms generate random permutations. The Fisher–Yates shuffle is a standard method that produces an unbiased permutation by iterating through the sequence and swapping each element with a randomly chosen later element. Shuffle operations are common in programming libraries and are used to randomize data before processing or training.

In media playback, shuffle mode reorders tracks randomly; modern implementations often aim to avoid immediate repeats and to cover the entire collection before repeating.