desultory
She wandered desultorily around the city centre.
A handful of couples danced desultorily.
The team gathered desultorily around him.

SMART Vocabulary: related words and phrases

Useless and futile
adrift
aimless
aimlessly
aimlessness
airy-fairy
fruitlessly
fruitlessness
futile
futilely
futility
negation
no goodidiom
non-viable
nugatory
ornamental
unrealistic
unrealistically
unseriousness
until you are blue in the faceidiom
unviability

Examples of desultorily

desultorily
I cursed desultorily with a smooth whispered flow of curses, because the circumstances seemed to demand it.
From Project Gutenberg
After supper, he marked seventeen sets of papers desultorily in red pencil, then got up to look for the baby book.
From Project Gutenberg
Slowly, wearily, desultorily, the erosion and desquamation went on.
From Project Gutenberg
They talked desultorily as the launch thrashed along.
From Project Gutenberg
She perched on the rail and pulled at the leafless vine-stems beside her, talking idly and desultorily of things she was not interested in.
From Project Gutenberg
She came and sat beside me on the river-balcony, and talked a little, desultorily and absent-mindedly.
From Project Gutenberg
Her fellow workers chatted desultorily of her as they had opportunity, and complacently thanked their gods that they were not as she--with reason.
From Project Gutenberg
The storm wore away as desultorily as it had come, and the long night set in.
From Project Gutenberg
Sitting on the uncomfortable wooden stools, or walking idly about, we smoked incessantly, read desultorily in magazines and books, and talked spasmodically.
From Project Gutenberg
He walked to the glass wall and looked out desultorily.
From Project Gutenberg
In his after-college life, athletics had continued to interest him if desultorily.
From Project Gutenberg
In time, the talk between the two young men, which had begun so desultorily, warmed up.
From Project Gutenberg
He spent whole nights in reading; and no longer desultorily.
From Project Gutenberg
Three of our party were sleeping, and the others talked quietly and low, desultorily, as if the drowsiness had half conquered us too.
From Project Gutenberg
To enter slightly or cursorily; to engage one's self desultorily or by the way; to partake limitedly; -- followed by in or into.
From Project Gutenberg
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