Sample Sentences for
desultory
(editor-reviewed)

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    But the firing was desultory.  (source)
    desultory = without plan or enthusiasm
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    Grover began to eat desultorily, and as Janis hadn't had anything yet either, everyone else nibbled to keep them company.  (source)
    desultorily = half-heartedly
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    ...the desultory gatherings of dirty men who huddle some distance from the train and pass around various types of intoxicant.  (source)
    desultory = lacking plan or purpose
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Show 10 more with 4 word variations
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    Now she could identify it as the sound of a piano being played with desultory but undeniable skill, though she couldn't identify the tune.  (source)
    desultory = half-hearted
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    Safia Bourihane leafed desultorily through it, mystified.†  (source)
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    In spite of his earlier remonstrances about Southern literature falling into desuetude, his brotherly concern for my work had been constant and encouraging.†  (source)
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    I imagined I knew why the women were doing this, ignoring the national sport on a Saturday to gather around Farmer and chat with such mild desultoriness, voices low and musical and unhurried.†  (source)
    standard suffix: The suffix "-ness" converts an adjective to a noun that means the quality of. This is the same pattern you see in words like darkness, kindness, and coolness.
  • •
    In the lulls, Robert and his mother exchanged bits of desultory conversation.  (source)
    desultory = lacking plan or purpose (jumping from one topic to the next)
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    They talked desultorily for some minutes, then, without apparent reason, a yell from the telescreen bade them be silent.†  (source)
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    The commonwealth fell, the loan bank closed its coffers and its books on a sensible loss, the rules of life which he had drawn about himself fell into desuetude.†  (source)
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    Mr. Casaubon made a dignified though somewhat sad audience; bowed in the right place, and avoided looking at anything documentary as far as possible, without showing disregard or impatience; mindful that this desultoriness was associated with the institutions of the country, and that the man who took him on this severe mental scamper was not only an amiable host, but a landholder and custos rotulorum.†  (source)
  • •
    Before October, 1893, I had studied various subjects by myself in a more or less desultory manner.  (source)
    desultory = without plan or enthusiasm
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    Harriet watched Barrett's slave, her own hands moving swiftly, stripping the husks from the corn, enjoying the fading light, the coolness that lay over the land, the look of the cornfield now that the crop was harvested, noticing all these things, and working, and yet watching the big young man who stood silent, whose hands moved slowly, desultorily.†  (source)
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