How To Use Desultory In A Sentence
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Elongated roars and fragments of voices gave a sense of atmospheric portent, while syncopated pings, clicks and chirps added a desultory counterpoint.
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We present for your inspection, and then debunk, or paw at in desultory fashion, a dozen of the choicest conspiracy theories to gain traction since Jan. 20.
Keeping Up with the Wingnuts
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As we near the end of the trail, Thomsen and I have a desultory conversation about how the Sierra are changing: more traffic, more big houses, more kids concerned only with what's on sale at the mall.
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His perception was that the desultory and undisciplined Chinese people did not deserve a democratic system.
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In the absence of accurate accounting, political debate over some of the most momentous issues of the age is proceeding in an empirical vacuum, and has become much more confused and desultory than it needs to be.
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There is desultory chitchat on the verandah as evening slides into pitch-dark night.
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There was a halting, desultory conversation, and he never mentioned the script.
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The stroll looks innocuously aimless enough, random conversation and desultory gaits all firmly in place.
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The executive has the habit of depending upon "desultory" memory where the logical should be developed.
Increasing Human Efficiency in Business: A Contribution to the Psychology of Business
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Slave patrols, rather than being desultory or inadequate, turn out to be one of the chief ways that the southern states enforced their peculiar institution.
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Meer Baber Beg has placed his fortress in a very respectable state of defence, quite adequate to repel the desultory inroads of his predatory neighbours; but commanded by and exposed to enfilade from the hills about it, on one of these hills he has built a tower as a kind of outwork, but it is very weak and of insignificant size.
A Peep into Toorkisthhan
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The second half was as poor as any in recent years; a desultory affair noteworthy only for its tedium.
Times, Sunday Times
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The stroll looks innocuously aimless enough, random conversation and desultory gaits all firmly in place.
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The deputation saluted, returned to the fallen-out contingent, which gravely unpiled its arms and marched back to its lines, amid a little desultory cheering from some few by-standers who realised what was taking place.
On the Heels of De Wet
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And some desultory clicking around Microsoft Office didn't see the power consumption get much above one watt.
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The first incoming flight, organised by the CIA, was welcomed with desultory bursts of anti-aircraft fire.
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Some Islamist groups today claim to want to re-establish the post, but their discussions lack rigor, are desultory, and thus far have no wide appeal.
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In spite of the glowing reports issued annually from various foreign hospitals for natives, and the undeniable good, though desultory and practically infinitesimal, that is being worked by these institutions, we cannot blind ourselves to the fact that western medical science is not making more rapid strides than many other innovations in the great struggle against Chinese prejudice and distrust.
Historic China, and other sketches
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desultory thoughts
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These prompt Abe to think about his own identity, his long-ignored Jewish heritage and even vague ideas of Christian conversion - possibilities he explores in a desultory way.
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Streets that look sullen and desultory in winter suddenly sparkle like Trinidad at carnival time.
Times, Sunday Times
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In some den of an apartment I will no doubt find the cockroach of enlightenment, a supralapsarian dispensationalist with whom I will share a love of Yeats and Brahms, and we will debate in sonorous and unending Spanish sentences of desultory, copious punctuation.
Changes and Vicissitudes of the Unexamined Life « Unknowing
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Then with dawning horror you realise you're screwed - eye contact is made and you're doomed to desultory, banal small talk the whole way until you get into Waverley.
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He seems to have worried about the aimless guest, that individual who would wander about in desultory manner, constantly amazed yet never really subjecting the exhibits to serious study.
The Romance of China: Excursions to China in U.S. Culture: 1776-1876
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The second half was as poor as any in recent years; a desultory affair noteworthy only for its tedium.
Times, Sunday Times
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The arrivals terminal has its own rhythm: the early desultory pulses of the automatic door, then the great disgorge, and finally, as the crowd wilts away, the trickle of presumably more complicated arrivals.
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The salad may have been a bit desultory and almost Parmesan-less, but the beautifully moist carpaccio of (as it turned out, virtually chilli-less) beef more than made up for it.
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Icahn plans to "[offer] up anecdotes and a running commentary on what he describes as the desultory state of corporate governance in America.
Dealbreaker
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Edmund again enjoyed a kind of desultory education, partly carried on at school and partly at his uncle's home, where he enjoyed the advantage of the kind instructions of his old friend, Miss
The Drama
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Unfortunately, the propagation of another leg to the equity bubble, however rapid the money pumping, will still require that earnings show at least the occasional desultory promise of improvement.
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Other than that, the U.S. men have gotten off to a desultory start, with only diminutive 5-6 downhiller Andy Weibrecht, 23, distinguishing himself with 12th-place finishes last weekend in downhill and super-G.
U.S. men's skiers start World Cup season on bumpy ride
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Desultory firing continued for two days amid fog, smokescreens, and increasing confusion, before the operation was eventually abandoned.
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Conversation was desultory and difficult, centring mainly around Amarinth's unwillingness to devote enough of her time to homework.
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So long as you keep moving in a desultory fashion, you are left alone.
Exploring Britain's Canals
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Some putter along in a slightly languid and desultory fashion.
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Miss Lucy is something of a desultory eater - a nibbler, as it were - which means that mealtime can take upwards of forty-five minutes.
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By February, 900 miners had abandoned the strike; at the pit gates, handfuls of pickets made desultory shouts of ‘scab’ as the trickle of working miners became a flood.
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So long as you keep moving in a desultory fashion, you are left alone.
Exploring Britain's Canals
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Late that evening Dick Blaine, returning from a desultory dinner at the club across the river, very nearly fell into the trap-door, for the hamal had run away too, thinking he would surely be accused of all the mischief, and no lamps were lit.
Guns of the Gods
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A desultory cannonade began at about 14.00, and as it seemed likely that there would be no battle that day Newcastle retired to his coach.
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And your little heart did throb a little, and sink for a day, when this playfellow was shipped off for life, as you thought, and you _did_ remember his funeral tears over his owl, and" -- a quaver of voice and betrayed earnestness revealed the jealous pang shooting across the heart of the speaker; but her own was too heavy and deeply anxious to prolong this desultory talk.
Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Vol 58, No. 357, July 1845
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Desultory firing continued for two days amid fog, smokescreens, and increasing confusion, before the operation was eventually abandoned.
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The discussions are desultory and most MPs, barring a few, do not even come prepared with their facts and figures.
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The desultory catalogue does little to rectify the situation.
The Times Literary Supplement
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The careful study of a few books is better than the desultory reading of many.
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Like you'd get on a picnic, or at a desultory summer fête?
Times, Sunday Times
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Over the years, there have been some desultory attempts to turn Fungus into a film.
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But while an old and outworn humanist tradition is allowed to prevail, while the studies of the average passman are allowed to be diffuse, desultory, and aimless, and of a kind from which it is useless to expect either animation or precision, so long will a blight rest upon the education of the country.
From a College Window
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Shortly after we debouched from the cedars I was directed by Rosecrans to send some aid to the right of General Palmer's division; and two of Schaefer's regiments, having obtained ammunition, were pushed up on Palmer's right, accompanied by four of Hescock's guns; but the advance of the enemy here had already been checked by Palmer, and only a desultory contest ensued.
She Makes Her Mouth Small & Round & Other Stories
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The port needs many improvements, and the Government has for some time been engaged in a kind of desultory dredging out there, but has not yet succeeded in affording a sufficient depth of water to allow large vessels to come directly to the wharves; and the lines of artificial obstruction, built across the channel of the bay during the war, to impede the passage of vessels, have not yet been removed.
The Great South; A Record of Journeys in Louisiana, Texas, the Indian Territory, Missouri, Arkansas, Mississippi, Alabama, Georgia, Florida, South Carolina, North Carolina, Kentucky, Tennessee, Virginia, West Virginia, and Maryland
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The Wimbledon crowd was given a desultory wave by their hero as he trudged away.
The Sun
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It seemed initially that the new Indian government wanted to accomplish what it had not succeeded in 30 years of desultory negotiations under the Shimla agreement.
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Next Friday sees the first anniversary of the inception of this desultory philippic.
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While the Joes concentrate their fire and quickly eliminate Cobra's heavy weapons, the Cobra forces offer little more than a token resistance and a few seconds of desultory return fire.
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She made a desultory attempt at conversation.
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Was it not enough that I had to endure 40 hours a week with them in desultory conversations about which books to ‘face out,’ in something defined by that pantywaist word, ‘chat’?
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Elongated roars and fragments of voices gave a sense of atmospheric portent, while syncopated pings, clicks and chirps added a desultory counterpoint.
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Streets that look sullen and desultory in winter suddenly sparkle like Trinidad at carnival time.
Times, Sunday Times
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Hotel life is blank, repetitious, and desultory, with the bareness of new furniture.
The Dress
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Hitler's immense popularity and respect in the country gave him ultimate authority but he exercised it only in a desultory and general way - leaving most decisions and all administration to his subordinates.
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By February, 900 miners had abandoned the strike; at the pit gates, handfuls of pickets made desultory shouts of ‘scab’ as the trickle of working miners became a flood.
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Judith now entered into a desultory discourse with Deerslayer.
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Other than that, the U.S. men have gotten off to a desultory start, with only diminutive 5-6 downhiller Andy Weibrecht, 23, distinguishing himself with 12th-place finishes last weekend in downhill and super-G.
U.S. men's skiers start World Cup season on bumpy ride
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I wandered about in a desultory fashion.
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Their desultory and often painfully facetious conversations are interspersed with picture-postcard vignettes in which presenter and guest savour the delights of holiday life in the capital.
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Opening night saw a desultory 20 people rattling around in a big, airy room ready for 70 diners.
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‘Ulan’ consists of a bass guitar plucked once every minute or so, accompanied by some desultory tom hits; the listener's interest is sustained insofar that he wonders whether the next note will ever come.
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In parts of Africa, especially the most remote rural areas, colonial rule had only a minimal direct economic effect, except for sometimes rather desultory attempts to impose taxes on people who had not previously used money.
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Her recent mysterious suicide is the talk of Wisteria Lane, the upper-class street that's home to a clique of attractive, desultory wives and mothers whose secrets are far juicier than average.
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Since then desultory efforts have been made to secure the return of this plundered piece of history.
Times, Sunday Times
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Almost every time I shop for groceries, I throw something into the cart in a desultory fashion in homage to Mary Tyler Moore, who does this in the opening credits.
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His essay on the desultory efforts made to protect the murrelet and its nesting grounds in oldgrowth forests is particularly acute.
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It's worth the trouble, just to be able to dream a little over a third cup of coffee, shuffling through your newspaper and doing a bit of desultory people-watching.
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This, and some other desultory conversation, served as a shoeing-horn to draw on another cup of ale and another cheerer, as Dinmont termed it in his country phrase, of brandy and water.
Chapter XXIV
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They talked briefly in a desultory manner.
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The kingfisher darts along like an arrow; fern-owls, or goat-suckers, glance in the dusk over the tops of trees like a meteor; starlings, as it were, swim along, while missel-thrushes use a wild and desultory flight; swallows sweep over the surface of the ground and water, and distinguish themselves by rapid turns and quick evolutions; swifts dash round in circles; and the bank-martin moves with frequent vacillations, like a butterfly.
MacMillan's Reading Books Book V
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The Wimbledon crowd was given a desultory wave by their hero as he trudged away.
The Sun
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Over the past few years, there’s been what I’d call a desultory, on-and-off debate, if it can be termed such, over the future of books, and of fiction.
The Future of Fiction? Its meaning? « L.E. Modesitt, Jr. – The Official Website
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Before the workers entered the heritage conservation scene, there had been only desultory efforts at saving historical architecture and the urban environment in Australia.
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After a few desultory paragraphs on Thomas Jefferson and Virginia's six American Viticultural Areas (a discussion that demonstrates only that they can read a map), the authors point out that Virginia specializes in vinifera varieties, "especially Riesling, Chardonnay, Cabernet Sauvignon and Merlot.
Wine: What Virginia and Maryland are up against
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Corbett allowed their conversation to be as desultory as possible, wanting his companion to relax and feel safe in his presence.
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A few minutes later, the river ford hove into sight, and desultory fire from the enemy began to interrupt the quiet of the dawn like toy cap guns.
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So much for my thought that the Justice Department would mount a desultory investigation and then give up.
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They exchanged a glance, and while he allowed his desultory description of Mrs. Townsends butterless scones to wilt, she cleared her throat.
The House at Riverton
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It reminded me of the desultory days when I used to sit in Harvard Square and talk with every homeless stewbum and mental outpatient that I could corner for a cup of coffee.
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They are too often reminiscent of desultory common-room conversation on those first nights at college, when no one knew anyone and everyone was defensive, posturing, or simply uninterested.
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I have done my duty,' and he thought in a vague and desultory manner about rectangular fields until they reached the top.
The Catalans
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It is good knockabout stuff, underpinned by necessary news values and bearing the unmistakable stamp of McKenzie, who seems to have found a métier again after a rather desultory time at Sky.
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Corbett allowed their conversation to be as desultory as possible, wanting his companion to relax and feel safe in his presence.
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In the mid 1990s desultory attempts were being made to revive this last variety, in the belief that it will add aromatic interest when blended with the Barbera grape.
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I have done my duty,' and he thought in a vague and desultory manner about rectangular fields until they reached the top.
The Catalans
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Do not let the discussion fragment into a desultory conversation with no clear direction.
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He felt as he had felt when a raw lieutenant in India, during his first hill-campaign, when the etiquette of the service had compelled him to rise and walk up and down in front of his men under a desultory shower of jezail-bullets.
Jill the Reckless
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General opinion now seems to be that it entered the language too early for that -- and an English etymology is preferred: fiver: a five pound (sterling) note (or "bill"); fossick: pick out gold, in a fairly desultory fashion.
The Rising of the Court
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She felt obligated to make some kind of chitchat, however desultory.
IN A STRANGE CITY
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A once desultory and commercially moribund neighborhood is revived.
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I left them idling about, or feeding in the same desultory way.
Times, Sunday Times
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A few minutes later, the river ford hove into sight, and desultory fire from the enemy began to interrupt the quiet of the dawn like toy cap guns.
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the desultory conversation characteristic of cocktail parties
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The talk itself was far more desultory, and in consequence of questions, objections, and explanations, divaricated much from the comparatively direct line I have endeavoured to give it here.
Wilfrid Cumbermede
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Do not let the discussion fragment into a desultory conversation with no clear direction.
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There are desultory protests in the ‘pen’, but that's a shockingly depressing situation.
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Desultory talk is a speciality of mine
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But despite his forced jocularity, desultory attempts at humour, and spurts of nervous energy, Obree is a husk of heroism past.
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Ayodhya has been subject to desultory and very limited archaeological investigations since the 19th century.
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The sequel was a spiritless, desultory affair - a poorly edited, flatly directed retread.
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The desultory catalogue does little to rectify the situation.
The Times Literary Supplement
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The rather desultory attempts to bring ‘democracy’ to post-Taliban Afghanistan speak volumes.
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One is that the language is the language of human discourse, and is subject to the same redundancies and occasional verbiage that we all encounter in desultory conversation.
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Only one or two strayed sometimes to the early arabis, desultory and sad, driven home again by the frosty air to await the purple times of honey.
Gone to Earth
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The while desultory long-distance firing was indulged in by the discomfited foe, the bullets pinging against the hard ground or flying with a sharp "siss" overhead.
Wilmshurst of the Frontier Force
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Do not let the discussion fragment into a desultory conversation with no clear direction.
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In the lounge room of the Sydney apartment, the desultory conversation suggests the housemates might as well be on different planets.
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As our desultory, lacklustre conversation progressed, it became clear that he was expecting me to ‘pitch’ to him in some way.
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Two dusky stable hands were leading a pair of thoroughbred around the ‘cooling rings’ of adjoining stables at the Fair Grounds in New Orleans and engaging in desultory conversation.
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When Mr. Manning called, and assisted her into the carriage, he observed an unusual preoccupancy of mind; but after a few desultory remarks she rallied, gave him her undivided attention, and seemed engrossed by his conversation.
St. Elmo
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The fall and winter wore away with these desultory movements; producing many a sharp skirmish, but nothing more resultful.
Four Years in Rebel Capitals An Inside View of Life in the Southern Confederacy from Birth to Death
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It let out a soft gurgle, choking on its own blood, and made a last desultory swipe at the hovering Mowara which the galah avoided easily.
The Lives of Felix Gunderson
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Every ten to fifteen years, the earth wobbles in a desultory fashion somewhere in these islands and a roof slate or two drops off.
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Pekar's endearingly pathetic life is given an new perspective when he translates his desultory day-today experiences into the basis for a cartoon strip.
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Obviously, U.S. investigators will be part of the effort to determine what the source of cause of this is, but I think I'd rather not speculate, based on this point, very kind of desultory information.
Press Briefing By Samuel Berger
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A few Maori left in the pa fired a few last desultory shots on the stranded soldiers, until a second battle began.
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After I figured out about having CFS, I switched to fantasies of the other kind of sanitarium, those elegant refuges for wealthy folks with tuberculosis, where a kindly nurse in a starched uniform wheels you out in your wicker bath chair onto the porch to take the air while you make desultory conversation with the other patients and sip lukewarm tea.
Blogging for CFS/ME: Honor those to whom honor is due
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Do not let the discussion fragment into a desultory conversation with no clear direction.
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Into this somewhat desultory discussion among historians a sociologist has now tossed a bombshell.
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She felt obligated to make some kind of chitchat, however desultory.
IN A STRANGE CITY
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I draft posted the entry with the intention of sprucing it up and making it cogent, but reading through it, I think the desultory, fragmented nature of the post reflects my rather uninterested attitude when watching this actual video.
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By the merest chances, they heard that all was well, and, compelled to be content with this scanty news, they plunged into their work again, till the roar of cannon and clash of steel became familiar as were the terrors of the scene of some desperate fight, such as modern soldiers would speak of as a desultory skirmish.
Crown and Sceptre A West Country Story
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So, he's speaking with another man in a desultory fashion (nothing that seemed important, just killing time).
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Since then desultory efforts have been made to secure the return of this plundered piece of history.
Times, Sunday Times
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After a few desultory job interviews, she discussed the idea with her husband and established an office in the spare bedroom, with an old wallpaper pasting table for a desk and banana boxes as filing cabinets.
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I left them idling about, or feeding in the same desultory way.
Times, Sunday Times
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The desultory discussion merely reaffirmed old perplexities.
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We don't want aimless acts any more than we want desultory negotiations.
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I have also been having a desultory email discussion of some issues with moral philosopher Keith Burgess-Jackson lately.
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With its converse insight into the modality of romantic apostasy, this volatile epigram is nothing less than the fulcrum with which we can gain sufficient purchase to negotiate the critical conversions of Coleridgean recantation, from the odes of the 1790s through the desultory journalism of the 1800s and 1810s to the "Logosophia" of 1817 and after.
The Multeity of Coleridgean Apostasy
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gumboots," making a desultory search for pay-sand, which no one had seen for weeks.
Where the Sun Swings North
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There is desultory chitchat on the verandah as evening slides into pitch-dark night.
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The persistence with which they fly down their victims is quite distinct from the desultory mutual robbery of immature gulls.
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All hopes destroyed, the young man leaves England and begins a desultory life of intrigue, adventure, and lost love among German princelings and principalities.
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After moving to California for my second postdoc, and making a desultory appraisal of the ice-cream situation, I was moved to buy my own ice-cream maker and churn out the burnt caramel myself.
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The constables made a desultory attempt to keep them away from the barn.
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She made a desultory attempt at conversation.
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But officials have repeatedly postponed a second session as desultory talks have dragged on over the division of top Cabinet posts among Iraq's religious and ethnic groups.
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He lives off the earnings of his wife, Eva, succumbs to fits of paranoia and anger, engages in a desultory affair, hates the physical decay around him and is haunted by the prospect of death.
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Occasionally , Mr. Lin and the collector from Shanghai exchanged a few desultory words.
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Like you'd get on a picnic, or at a desultory summer fête?
Times, Sunday Times
