☼ Concept Map

''desultory'' ▫ᴱᴺ｜Definition｜1st｜20260904134559-00-⌔

desultory - Wiktionary, the free dictionary

English

Adjective

desultory (comparative more desultory, superlative most desultory)

  • Jumping, or passing, from one thing or subject to another, without order, planning, or rational connection; lacking logical sequence.
    • ✤ Near-synonyms: aimless, chaotic, disconnected, erratic, haphazard, meandering, quodlibetic, quodlibetical, random, rambling, scattered, unmethodical, unsystematic, wandering
    • ✤ He wandered round, cleaning up in a desultory way.
    • ✤ I teach a class of desultory minds.
    • ✤ subject to desultory fire from the enemy
    • ✤ To mend the matter, Hamlet’s aunt had the family failing of indulging in soliloquy, and held forth in a desultory manner, by herself, on every topic that was introduced.1
    • ✤ In New York I eagerly accepted the soft job fate offered me: it consisted mainly of thinking up and editing perfume ads. I welcomed its desultory character and pseudoliterary aspects, attending to it whenever I had nothing better to do.2
    • ✤ The Benelux Customs Union came into effect on January 1st 1948, and there followed desultory conversations between the Benelux countries, France and Italy over projects to extend such cooperation across a larger space.3
    • ✤ ‘Your desultory twenties,’ my mother calls my lost time, trying to make it sound reasonable and fun, but it started before I was twenty and lasted much longer.4
  • Out of course; by the way; not connected with the subject.
    • ✤ Antonyms: apropos, germane, relevant
    • ✤ Coordinate terms: oblique, tangential
    • ✤ Near-synonyms: extraneous, incidental, irrelevant, nongermane, spurious, stray, unconnected, ungermane, unrelated
    • ✤ I made a desultory remark while I was talking to my friend.
    • ✤ She made a desultory attempt at conversation.
  • Disappointing in performance or progress.
    • ✤ Coordinate terms: incompetent, inept, ineffective, apathetic
    • ✤ Near-synonyms: half-assed, halfhearted
    • ✤ As we stood waiting for the departure time with the setting sun twinkling on the great brass dome of our 2-4-0, the sound of church bells was the only one apart from the measured tread of the guard slowly pacing towards his van, and, standing at an open window, I more than once heard the fireman’s “Right away!” to his mate in acknowledgement of a desultory wave of the unfurled green flag.5
  • (obsolete) Leaping, skipping or flitting about, generally in a random or unsteady manner.

Etymology

From Latin dēsultōrius (“hasty, casual, superficial”), from dēsultor (“a circus rider who jumped from one galloping horse to another”), from dēsiliō (“jump down”), from dē (“down”) + saliō (“jump, leap”).6

Pronunciation

  • (UK) IPA: /ˈdɛs.əl.t(ə).ɹi/, /ˈdɛz.əl.t(ə).ɹi/
  • (US) IPA: /ˈdɛs.əlˌtɔɹ.i/, /ˈdɛz.əlˌtɔɹ.i/
  • Audio (US):, Audio (US): 🔊 🔊

Printed 2026-09-04.

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Footnotes

  1. 1849 May – 1850 November, Charles Dickens, chapter 25, in The Personal History of David Copperfield, London: Bradbury & Evans, […], published 1850, →OCLC: ↩

  2. 1955, Vladimir Nabokov, Lolita, 1st American edition, New York, N.Y.: G[eorge] P[almer] Putnam’s Sons, published August 1958, →OCLC: ↩

  3. 2005, Tony Judt, “The Coming of the Cold War”, in Postwar: A history of Europe since 1945, London: Vintage Books, published 2010, →ISBN: ↩

  4. 2010, Jennifer Egan, “You (Plural)”, in A Visit from the Goon Squad: ↩

  5. 1955 January, R. S. McNaught, “From the Severn to the Mersey by Great Western”, in Railway Magazine, page 19: ↩

  6. Douglas Harper (2001–2026), “desultory”, in Online Etymology Dictionary. ↩