Definitions
from The Century Dictionary.
- In a desultory or random manner; without method; loosely.
from the GNU version of the Collaborative International Dictionary of English.
- adverb In a desultory manner; without method; loosely; immethodically.
from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License.
- adverb In a
desultory fashion
Etymologies
from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License
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Examples
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Hall's authority came from his citations, a mass so large that "desultorily" can hardly describe the intensity of his collecting.
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Apparently, even when St. Vlad was ordering breakfast, muttering in his sleep, desultorily shifting the surface-clues in alphabet soup or gasping shamed urgencies in Vera's ear ... etc.
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I've just been home, desultorily knitting and walking the dog, and I haven't accomplished nearly what you did while making a transatlantic trip AND attending a lovely 3 day party/family reunion!
Jean's Knitting Jean 2009
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One day four months ago, I was sitting at home desultorily scanning job boards and e-mailing resumes, when the phone rang.
Naomi Cohn: How I Got a Job After Two Years Without One Naomi Cohn 2011
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Around me perched on the uncomfortable chairs (how does Helen Thomas sleep here?), wedged in with battery packs and backpacks spilling BlackBerries and spiral notebooks, are a few of the visiting press conversing desultorily in Spanish.
Mayhill Fowler: A Citizen Journalist Covers an Obama State Dinner [PHOTOS] 2010
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In that jaundiced reportorial frame of mind, sitting in the press compound at Bristol, desultorily I watched a woman shepherd a young man in a wheelchair onto the gym floor.
Mayhill Fowler: Bittergate: the Untold Story Behind the Story that Rocked the Obama Campaign 2010
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Ordering a few leaves and poking at them desultorily does not constitute sharing a meal.
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Around me perched on the uncomfortable chairs (how does Helen Thomas sleep here?), wedged in with battery packs and backpacks spilling BlackBerries and spiral notebooks, are a few of the visiting press conversing desultorily in Spanish.
Mayhill Fowler: A Citizen Journalist Covers an Obama State Dinner [PHOTOS] 2010
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He was a year older and had a BB rifle with him, shooting desultorily at trees, cans, fence posts.
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In that jaundiced reportorial frame of mind, sitting in the press compound at Bristol, desultorily I watched a woman shepherd a young man in a wheelchair onto the gym floor.
Bittergate: the Untold Story Behind the Story that Rocked the Obama Campaign 2010
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