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listless
in a sentence

show 189 more with this conextual meaning
  • The nationalist on the stepladder, his quick hands slashing through the air, was whipping his growing audience out of its morning listlessness.   (source)
    listlessness = lack of energy and normal enthusiasm
  • Eddie slumped over the railing, gazing listlessly down at the columns of police.   (source)
    listlessly = with a lack of energy and normal enthusiasm
  • His hands lay listless.   (source)
    listless = lacking energy
  • But more than by anything else, he was disgusted by himself, by his perfumed hair, by the smell of wine from his mouth, by the flabby tiredness and listlessness of his skin.   (source)
    listlessness = lack of energy and normal enthusiasm
  • "You can't," Leamas replied listlessly.   (source)
    listlessly = with a lack of energy and normal enthusiasm
  • ...the cattle moved thin and listless over the red and rootless earth.   (source)
    listless = without energy or enthusiasm
  • As Tom comes listlessly for his coffee...   (source)
    listlessly = with a lack of energy and normal enthusiasm
  • His thoughts must have dragged as slowly and listlessly as mine with the same painful dullness.   (source)
  • "I don't feel up to it," said Dorian, listlessly.   (source)
  • But Mama was listless and Esperanza often found her weeping in silence.†   (source)
  • "But I got us into it," he said listlessly.†   (source)
  • I found her in a deck chair with a plaid rug pulled up to her neck, listlessly watching a game of quoits.†   (source)
  • Morning brought a listless agitation to the hallway.†   (source)
  • When eating, she would push her food listlessly around the plate, and she tossed and turned at night.†   (source)
  • It lay near the stern, where it had fallen, listless, but its stomach was still panting and its eyes were still moving, expressing terror.†   (source)
  • She was so nonfunctional and listless, that her appointed lawyer thought she was incompetent to stand trial.†   (source)
  • Aziza became even more listless.†   (source)
  • Listless sleep—without any more of the memory-dreams he'd experienced.†   (source)
  • He was pale and exhausted, and stared out the window listlessly for the whole journey.†   (source)
  • The energy we had brought with us, the expectation of fun, seeped away, and left us even more listlessly reluctant to go home.†   (source)
  • I'm bruised, bloody, and listless.†   (source)
  • She was sick all the time, and this cost her her energy; she grew listless; she developed a matronly spread, and the vague, unfocused look of someone over forty who might be sixty—or would be, tomorrow.†   (source)
  • Ji-yong and Ji-yun each took one of Dad's hands, while I listlessly followed.†   (source)
  • At first Ekwefi accepted her, as she had accepted others—with listless resignation.†   (source)
  • The same listlessness after the meal.†   (source)
  • But whenever they weren't under direct orders to do something, the children sank heavily into chairs, stared listlessly out locked windows, paged through dog-eared books they'd read a hundred times before, or slept.†   (source)
  • They sat around the table where they had eaten cake on their first morning at the house, and picked listlessly at their food.†   (source)
  • Before he left for the university he would leave a cup of tea by the side of the bed, where she lay listless and silent.†   (source)
  • She saw the ashes of a fire, a few score horses milling listlessly and searching for a bite of grass, a scattering of tents and bedrolls.†   (source)
  • He nodded listlessly.†   (source)
  • I'm neither strong nor healthy, and my days are spent like an old party balloon: listless, spongy, and growing softer over time.†   (source)
  • I thought of this saying on one of those days when I was feeling a little depressed and was sitting at home with my chin in my hands, bored and listless, wondering whether to stay in or go out.†   (source)
  • "I need coffee," she said listlessly.†   (source)
  • It is going limp, bobbing listlessly, half-deflated, at the end of its string.†   (source)
  • Of course I'm listless!†   (source)
  • A tear slid down his listless face and evaporated in the sunlight, leaving a salty crust on his skin.†   (source)
  • I lolled on my back and worked on my tablecloth listlessly, to preserve my mother's fantasy that I'd be getting married one day, and after a while it began to draw me in.†   (source)
  • There was something eerie about it, just hanging there like a dead thing, all dark and listless in the sky.†   (source)
  • Bolts of lightning begin raining down, striking the scouts dead where they stand, creating small explosions that form clouds of ash that drift listlessly across the yard.†   (source)
  • A century ago the island would have been driven by the bands of dolphins brought here originally during the Hegira, but the Hegemony pacification program during the Siri Rebellion had killed off most of the aquatic mammals and now the islands wandered listlessly, carrying their cargo of Web tourists and resort owners.†   (source)
  • She'd lost a considerable amount of weight, and seemed listless, dull-eyed and tired.†   (source)
  • "In talking with them I was amazed at their listless and hopeless attitude," she said.†   (source)
  • Listless and sleepy with hunger Denver saw the flesh between her mother's forefinger and thumb fade.†   (source)
  • Dorothy's father, a lanky, nearly bald man, stepped in from the kitchen and listlessly shook my hand.†   (source)
  • He failed to show up for work, and when he did, he worked listlessly, and condescended to his father's employees.†   (source)
  • Bella trudged along listlessly behind Signor Luciano.†   (source)
  • Then he moved listlessly around the inn, doing small jobs left over from the night before.†   (source)
  • He sounds listless.†   (source)
  • I arrived at the volunteer center and realized everyone else knew this too: There was a listlessness, a defeat, that hung over the place.†   (source)
  • Inside the imaging room, Sonja stood with the tech behind the radiation shield while I stood beside a listless Colton as the moving table slid him into a big, scary tube.†   (source)
  • The judge picked his gavel up and dropped it again listlessly against its walnut plate.†   (source)
  • But I'm sure I wore a pained expression on my face; because in a moment Mother went on: "You mustn't be listless this way when Nobu wants you in his bed.†   (source)
  • On the contrary, he had deliberately pushed the matter aside because every time he thought about Wennerström and his own situation, he would sink into depression and listlessness.†   (source)
  • The Cowboy skippered the boat; Otto sketched and fished; Perry baited hooks, daydreamed, sang, and sometimes fished; Dick did nothing-only moaned, complained of the motion, lay about sun-drugged and listless, like a lizard at siesta.†   (source)
  • An aging, skinny maid whose rotted teeth matched the condition of her navy blue chad or responded listlessly to Ameh Bozorg's commands.†   (source)
  • Never mind,' Brett said listlessly.†   (source)
  • In many of the rooms, he found animals that seemed dull-eyed and listless.†   (source)
  • THE SUNDAY AFTER Luma canceled the 15s' season was rainy and listless.†   (source)
  • His sister, age five, sat holding a doll in one listless hand.†   (source)
  • "Aren't you working?" he asked listlessly.†   (source)
  • I moved around the room listlessly, listening to him type, taking in the room's stale smell.†   (source)
  • Perspiration dripped from white faces as the operatives stood listlessly at their looms, or the children straggled back and forth in the narrow lanes between the frames, tending the endlessly turning spools.†   (source)
  • Sadako grew pale and listless.†   (source)
  • From this time on, the children were doped and dazed, sluggish with sleep, limp and listless.†   (source)
  • The heat and dry air had left twelve-year-old Claire Innes tired and listless all day.†   (source)
  • One sunny afternoon I was loitering on the bench in front of the electric shop in the sun, listlessly trying to read a slim volume of Candide that some wiseacre had sent me.†   (source)
  • They drug around listlessly, not actually shirking their work but taking a long time to do it.†   (source)
  • There were still a few demonstrators, listless now, young people in their grimy tie-dyes, and city cops as well, idler still, showing the eternal laden strain of a big meal hustled down the gullet, where it sits for hours earning overtime.†   (source)
  • Neth's listlessness abruptly disappeared.†   (source)
  • There's something depressing about a balloon that just lies there, listless.†   (source)
  • In the beginning, the symptoms are listlessness, a weakening of the immune system, and some light-headedness.†   (source)
  • I sat back listlessly watching those licking flames.†   (source)
  • From one day to the next, her listlessness had vanished, she had stopped finding everything "so lovely," and she seemed to have been cured of her habit of speaking with invisible spirits and moving the furniture by supernatural means.†   (source)
  • He was a tall, narrow, disconsolate man who moved with a crabby listlessness.†   (source)
  • By the time I'm toying listlessly with chocolate feulliantine, lavender honey ice cream, and caramelized pears, it's about midnight, and my head is starting to droop.†   (source)
  • She was listless, withdrawn, as if years, not minutes, had passed since I last saw her.†   (source)
  • On the edge of the Fore-Temple water, a teenager from the upper city sat sullen and listless watching half a dozen little children hopping from stone to stone, singing: One, two, my aunt told me Three, four, the corpse soldier Five, six, it'll shoot you in the eye Seven, eight, kill you dead Nine, ten, break it apart and put it back together.†   (source)
  • Perhaps the part of me that observed listlessly but saw all, missing nothing, was still the malicious, arguing part; the dissenting voice, my grandfather part; the cynical, disbelieving part-the traitor self that always threatened internal discord.†   (source)
  • She looked rather swollen and she seemed listless.†   (source)
  • She let it steam, lathered listlessly while she played through the events of the night before.†   (source)
  • My momma was sick, listless, tired all the time.†   (source)
  • Morris Panov sat listlessly in a chair by a window looking out over the pasture of a farm somewhere, he assumed, in Maryland.†   (source)
  • But though she tried to be part of it, performing every task she set herself, she could not shift the listless hollow inside her.†   (source)
  • In his guilt and bewilderment he spent more money on her that Christmas than on all the other children, but they still felt the quiet reproach in her spirit as she listlessly fingered the new sweaters, camera, and portable radio.†   (source)
  • I lay listlessly on the sofa while I waited for him.†   (source)
  • Within an adjoining pen, a spotted sow sprawled listlessly on her side while a dozen chickens squawked and squabbled over scattered kernels.†   (source)
  • There were glaring lights inside, a few tired salesgirls among a spread of deserted counters, and the screaming of a phonograph record being played for a lone, listless customer in a corner.†   (source)
  • He was looking from one of the Silent Brothers to the other with a curious listlessness, like someone who had received countless terminal diagnoses from different doctors and now, having reached the end of the line, waited without much hope for a specialist's verdict.†   (source)
  • He gazes listlessly at the cameras and responds like a man stopped on the street, dutifully answering each part of each question, answering the follow-ups, searching through the mess of his emotions for reasons this could happen.†   (source)
  • They would dismount for some listless rifle shots before their quarry vanished into the city-sized green thickets.†   (source)
  • They sat around the living room listlessly, with the light coming in all wrong—sunshine filtering through the rear windows on a weekday morning, when most of the family should have been at work.†   (source)
  • They're so listless, they barely look up to see me.†   (source)
  • They prescribed sleeping pills, which she refused to take, and anti-anxiety medication, which left her feeling dull and listless.†   (source)
  • Let's not talk about it," she said, almost listlessly, squashing her cigarette stub in the ashtray.†   (source)
  • But when he stirred his food listlessly, she held Theresa's hand; when he lost weight, she felt it lose its grip.†   (source)
  • Once off the snowbank, Cooper sank down out of sight, as listless as if he wanted to die.†   (source)
  • He nodded listlessly.†   (source)
  • It came to rest, despite her efforts to intercept it, spread listlessly across the breakfast table.†   (source)
  • It was a task accompanied by waves of nausea, but she knew she had to force it down: the eggs and the bacon and the whole-wheat bread and the skimmed milk she assembled together listlessly in the gloom of her cramped little kitchenette.†   (source)
  • This vacant eye, listless hand, this damask cheek dusted like a doughnut with plastic powder, had to have a memory or a dream.†   (source)
  • I anticipated a listless, unfruitful year with Mr. Fleagle andfor a long time was not disappointed.†   (source)
  • They were emaciated, undernourished, and listless refuse who were alternately loved and abused by their masters.†   (source)
  • The water moved listlessly against the palings and the pebbly shore, and now and then a boat would bump softly against the burlap on the dock or a fish would jump.†   (source)
  • Chapter 20 I let the precious, useless gems dribble through my fingers, listlessly pushed them aside.†   (source)
  • His face was listless, a little flabby.†   (source)
  • Now that he was in this outdoor air he felt even more listless and powerful; he was alone, and the silent, invisible energy was everywhere.†   (source)
  • "Not really," she said a little listlessly.†   (source)
  • [BERENGER, still listless without appearing to hear anything at all, replies tranquilly to JEAN about the invitation; his lips move but one doesn't hear what he says; JEAN bounds to his feet, knocking his chair over as he does so, looks off left pointing, whilst BERENGER, still a little dopey, remains seated.†   (source)
  • Their faces faded; the two younger ones began crying listlessly from hunger and disappointment.†   (source)
  • He picks up his glass listlessly.†   (source)
  • It had been a drug, a soporific, in the past, reading them; now, as she turned them over listlessly, she wondered why they had lost their flavor.†   (source)
  • Jody walked up to the house and took his place listlessly at the table.   (source)
  • A flat soccer ball was kicked around, chased after listlessly.†   (source)
  • "He has no sense of fun or adventure," she said, listlessly stirring her coffee.†   (source)
  • Banners of the white-maned man hung listlessly from lamp poles, posters curled up in the heat.†   (source)
  • Their long green hair floated listlessly around their faces.†   (source)
  • Pigs grunted listlessly, unmindful of knives whetted for the coming fall.†   (source)
  • "Well"—he shrugged listlessly—"now you know.†   (source)
  • Poor wan Lady Hornwood sat beside him, her face a stony mask as she picked listlessly at her food.†   (source)
  • Listlessly they watched people moving through the neighbourhood.†   (source)
  • Tyrion stabbed listlessly at a greasy grey sausage, wishing it were his sister.†   (source)
  • Yossarian moved listlessly into his own room, undressed and went to sleep.†   (source)
  • The cattle were walking listlessly, worn out from their run.†   (source)
  • May the gods go with her, she thought as she returned listlessly to her supper.†   (source)
  • Actually, Billy's outward listlessness was a screen.†   (source)
  • The listlessness concealed a mind which was fizzing and flashing thrillingly.†   (source)
  • The land cracked and the springs dried up and the cattle listlessly nibbled dry twigs.†   (source)
  • But her attitude said listlessly, "What is the use?"†   (source)
  • We circled each other listlessly, and one of them—Nino or Jerry—yelled to me, "Hit him!†   (source)
  • The moody boy served the beans listlessly.†   (source)
  • In the afternoon Cathy rose listlessly from her bed and spent a long time in front of the mirror.†   (source)
  • "Help me, Bronek," she said listlessly, gazing up at the little man.†   (source)
  • Perhaps because he was determined to make up for having walked out on them, perhaps because Harry's descent into listlessness galvanized his dormant leadership qualities, Ron was the one now encouraging and exhorting the other two into action.†   (source)
  • She turned her goblet listlessly.†   (source)
  • Masooma listlessly sweeps her hand.†   (source)
  • "Big points," said Jimmy listlessly.†   (source)
  • She waved listlessly at the wreckage.†   (source)
  • Even the cicadas chirped listlessly.†   (source)
  • So now on nights when my mother presented her tests, I performed listlessly, my head propped on one arm.†   (source)
  • I stared up at Mama, wondering if she would ever know what we had done, then joined the boys who were sitting listlessly around the fire absently listening to T.J. "See, fellows, there's a system to getting out of work," T.J. was expounding as I sat down.†   (source)
  • Late one morning, Lilian sat listlessly in her bedroom office, chewing her bottom lip as she stared at her work.†   (source)
  • The old flatbed ferryboat had been functional just the day before, the commercant claimed, but now it bobbed listlessly on the opposite shore in spite of his piercing whistles and waving arms.†   (source)
  • He wandered listlessly around the wide, high-ceilinged hallways of their massive home, through all the big empty rooms, or else he sat looking out the window of his bedroom upstairs.†   (source)
  • He kept an eye on the unpaved path stretching to the main road as he juggled, as he sat on the stump watching a fighter jet streak across the sky, as he listlessly flicked pebbles at nothing.†   (source)
  • And there was his father, Mullah Shekib himself, and three white-bearded men sitting in the shade of a wall, listlessly fingering their prayer beads, their ageless eyes fixed on Nila and her bare arms with a look of displeasure.†   (source)
  • But then, she takes on husbands the way other people change their hair color: out of boredom, listlessness, or just feeling that this next one will fix everything, once and for all.†   (source)
  • I remember now that Jane seemed quiet and even a bit moody during those days, staring sightlessly out the glass doors or sorting listlessly through old boxes of the kids' stuff.†   (source)
  • A strange listlessness had settled over Castle Black since Stannis had marched south, as if the free folk and the black brothers alike were holding their breath, waiting to see what would come.†   (source)
  • She found Lord Robert alone in the Morning Hall above the kitchens, pushing a wooden spoon listlessly through a big bowl of porridge and honey.†   (source)
  • I longed to get away from the theater altogether and stood listlessly, garnering information at last that was useless and infinitely dull.†   (source)
  • Chamberlin, for instance, felt: "The firemen kept at work fighting the flames — stupidly and listlessly, for they had worked hard all of Saturday night and most of Sunday, and had been enervated by the whisky, which is always copiously poured on such occasions."†   (source)
  • He acted sick, and more than once when I looked back to say something, Cooper would be lying listlessly in the middle of the road a hundred yards behind.†   (source)
  • She seemed lost in thought, as she listlessly watched the stream of people walking down below on Götgatan.†   (source)
  • The morning was bright with white light seeming to rise from the earth itself Doc lay on his stomach, looking listlessly out across a brown paddy that ended at the river.†   (source)
  • "No, go ahead," I said listlessly.†   (source)
  • In a flash she understood the color of Blanca's aura, the bags under her eyes, her listlessness, her silence, her morning sleepiness, and her afternoon watercolors.†   (source)
  • 'Okay,' Vic said listlessly.†   (source)
  • At the end of the frenzied day, when I came home from work late, I found him sitting listlessly, still in his robe, unshaven and unwashed.†   (source)
  • By daybreak the herd was strung out to a distance of more than five miles, most of the men plodding along as listlessly as the cattle.†   (source)
  • He plodded along the zigzagging path through the forest listlessly, clogged with thirst and feeling almost too exhausted to go on.†   (source)
  • He had acquired all the negative characteristics of his peers and his listlessness and general appearance caused me to regret my condemning these dogs to such a life.†   (source)
  • WHEN BREAKFAST WAS OVER he wandered listlessly into the sitting room and looked all around, but he did not see any place where he would like to sit down.†   (source)
  • Only when Jeffrey went off on his bicycle did Fey remain at home, lying listlessly in front of the door and staring down the road with moist, mournful eyes, her muzzle resting on her paws.†   (source)
  • I explained this to Ira cautiously, and she nodded listlessly and said yes, it was a necessary precaution, but she did not look at me and she showed no enthusiasm.†   (source)
  • Nex' week," she said listlessly.†   (source)
  • From here the sea—listlessly washing against the sand and a curious unsightly gray-green, like engine oil—was plainly visible, but we ourselves could not be seen except by the gulls that wavered overhead on the windless air.†   (source)
  • Listlessly she stacked the plates, carried them into the kitchen, filled the sink with water, and then forgot what she was doing.†   (source)
  • Ira had been given in marriage in the month of June, which is the propitious season for weddings, and what with the preparing for it, and the listlessness that took hold of me in the first days after her departure, nothing was done to make our hut weatherproof or to secure the land from flooding.†   (source)
  • Lulled as if amid sluggish waves of time she drowsed in a blessed stupor, awoke listlessly to the sound of a distant gathering ululation that blossomed in her ears, grew louder, becoming a savage roar.†   (source)
  • "How can I?" said Dick listlessly.†   (source)
  • The coolness gave her back some of her vitality: she was tired, yes, but it was not unbearable; she clutched at the cold months as if they were a shield to ward off the dreaded listlessness of the heat that would follow.†   (source)
  • On the ugly street below—gray and grainy and featureless like the worn sole of a shoe—a platoon of German soldiers tramped into the gusty wind, the collars of their tunics blowing, rifles slung at the shoulder; listlessly she watched them pass the corner, turn, disappear up a street where but for an intervening bombed-out building she knew she could have seen the steel-and-iron curbside public gallows: it was as functional as a rack upon which secondhand dealers displayed used clothes,…†   (source)
  • But even as she absorbed this knowledge she moved her head listlessly, conscious of something else, a voice, a man's voice, orotund, powerful, raging at the half-cowering and perspiring figure whose back was to her but whom she dimly recognized by the green eyeshade gone askew on his brow as Sholom Weiss.†   (source)
  • from time to time she seemed tired and listless.†   (source)
  • Luke gathered up Annabeth's listless body and carried her away from the goddess.†   (source)
  • I'll explain later," Ruth said again, but this time her voice was listless.†   (source)
  • Ruth May remained listless while I explored my thoughts and finished up her braids.†   (source)
  • He sat for a moment at Salander's desk, listless, staring into space.†   (source)
  • Hearthstone's signing was listless and weak.†   (source)
  • The exchange with her mom this morning had left her feeling listless.†   (source)
  • She's become listless; she has trembling seizures and her mind appears to wander.†   (source)
  • Her face is swollen and her voice is listless, like a heavy sigh.†   (source)
  • You smell like cigarettes when you come home, you're listless and distracted.†   (source)
  • He signed something—maybe sorry—but his gesture was so listless I wasn't sure.†   (source)
  • After a time he lowered his head and rubbed his nose on his forepaws in a listless manner.†   (source)
  • Genet, pale and strangely listless, squeezed my hand.†   (source)
  • Jaime gave him a listless slap on the back and pushed him out of his room.†   (source)
  • She was wrapped in a blanket, leaning against him, upright but listless.†   (source)
  • Yet the men who sat in them seemed so listless and world-weary that they might have been asleep.†   (source)
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