(a.) Jumping, or passing, from one thing or subject to another, without order or rational connection; without logical sequence; disconnected; immethodical; aimless; as, desultory minds.
(a.) Out of course; by the way; as a digression; not connected with the subject; as, a desultory remark.
Example Sentences:
(1) Senior figures in the yes campaign were predicting a 60%-to-40% defeat on a desultory turnout, with one admitting: "We were providing a solution to a problem the British public did not recognise."
(2) Andy Burnham Burnham, or at least the Andy Burnham campaign, was making desultory calls on Thursday to test out Labour MPs to see if they were interested in serving in a Burnham shadow cabinet.
(3) A few desultory bands followed, performing an assortment of leftwing songs from various historical leftwing movements.
(4) This came as no real surprise to me; through my desultory use of Facebook over the years I have somehow accrued 362 "friends".
(5) Others surf the internet, update their blogs; make desultory notes; look at each others' notes.
(6) Cafes and restaurants typically close around dusk, with custom desultory and staff eager to get home early on less frequent public transport.
(7) The state was shocked with weapons, money, foreign troops and aid but with little oversight or accountability the results from a long occupation and massive amounts of foreign aid have been desultory.
(8) Nor did he shed any light on how he believed the decision may affect the desultory negotiating process with Tripoli that the UN and the Russians are trying, so far without much success, to advance.
(9) Except for scalp hair and desultory areas of sexual hair, most of man's hair follicles are vestigial.
(10) Bin Laden did describe the obtaining of chemical weapons as a religious duty, and al-Qaida and offshoots did make desultory efforts to build laboratories in Afghanistan and in northern Iraq .
(11) The yes camp, urged on by Clegg, secured a desultory 32.1%.
(12) But there’s a lot of toffs round here, I reckon they’ll get in again because of that.” Though even Clegg will admit victory is “a mountain to climb”, a close second, up from fourth in 2015, would help the Lib Dems test their messaging to Tory voters in preparation for seats they might be more able to win, particularly in the south-west, though the polls for the party nationally remain at a stubborn and desultory 8%.
(13) The series of general frequency shows: driveling 67.9%, desultory thinking 57.3%, withdrawal, broadcasting, insertion 32.7%, loosening of association, gaps, derailment 28.9%, blocking 16.5%, transitoriness, movielike thinking, double-sense thinking 12.0%.
(14) After a rather desultory attempt to overrun the supposed adversary, they discovered that he had claws.
(15) Against this desultory backdrop, it is instructive to note that in policy circles, EPR also stands for Extended Producer Responsibility , the concept that the manufacturer of a smartphone, for example, should be responsible for recycling the handset when discarded.
(16) The military historian and former US marine corps colonel Bing West describes these desultory battles as " groundhog wars ".
(17) In the nonobese group, normal subjects responded to massive hyperglycemia after rapid injection of glucose with immediate and maximal outpouring of insulin, in contrast to a desultory insulinogenic response in patients with mild diabetes, and no initial response at all in moderate diabetics.
(18) The Guardian's report today tells the story of volunteers who were made to pay for their own equipment and weapons, given desultory basic training, then patronised or ignored.
(19) And sometimes, in practice, things can be very desultory indeed.
(20) There are no precise figures of how many Jews left France in 2014, since France does not collect census information regarding religion and is surprisingly desultory about data regarding emigration, but it is probably in the region of around 2% of the overall Jewish population, a huge increase on all previous years.
Flitting
Definition:
(p. pr. & vb. n.) of Flit
(n.) A flying with lightness and celerity; a fluttering.
(n.) A removal from one habitation to another.
Example Sentences:
(1) From his 19th-floor newsroom Eurípedes Alcântara enjoys a spectacular view over the "new Brazil"; helicopters flit through the afternoon sky, shiny new cars honk their way across town, tower blocks and luxury shopping centres sprout like turnips from the urban sprawl.
(2) I try not to flit between characters too much because I don't like that either.
(3) Facebook Twitter Pinterest He commands the screen even when silent, his pain flitting across that gaunt, ravaged face … Sean Bean in Broken.
(4) In our own time, Brooke has become the haunting symbol of a doomed generation, flitting across the pages of novels by Alan Hollinghurst and AS Byatt like a volatile and irreverent Peter Pan.
(5) The social group that is most affected by this kind of work is also known as the "precariat": they live and work insecurely, flitting between short-term dead-end jobs, without an occupational identity or opportunity to develop themselves.
(6) Cardinale made them at the same time, flitting from Fellini's modernist, black-and-white vision of Rome to Visconti's sumptuous recreation of 19th-century Sicily.
(7) It is hugely disappointing that President Trump is making the mistake in rowing back on the Paris agreement,” she said, “Climate change is a very real global issue that affects the successful future of our planet.” Carlos Rittl, executive secretary of the Brazilian Climate Observatory said the decision “creates the risk of a domino effect” that could put the target of keeping temperature rises below 2C (3.6F) out of reach, though he held out hope that global talks can make greater progress in reducing fossil fuels and promoting renewable energy in the absence of a country that has flitted back and forth between leadership and obstruction.
(8) The 1970s then saw Spark flitting edgily between a harsh, lurid satire and something close to the French nouveau roman.
(9) Ozil is an impudent playmaker who usually flits behind the lone striker, finding space and creating opportunities with his sublime left foot.
(10) At first, he refused to speak, preferring to communicate by eye contact alone You’d glimpse him around the Hotel de Paris: a shadow flitting between the marble colonnades.
(11) If they are poor, it wants them to be invisible, flitting uncomplainingly from one menial job to the next.
(12) Film-buyers flit around, desperately trying to discover which films are beeping on their rivals' radar, and to establish what is being bought and by whom.
(13) Balding was equally comfortable flitting between the two.
(14) She didn’t need all these superficial connections with people that many of us have as we flit about the world from one social occasion to another.
(15) Unlike the supremely adapted swallow aeronauts that skimmed the grass in the pastures and would shortly be migrating, the redstart merely flitted between perches on broad wings that seem better suited to following the erratic flight of an insect than to long-distance travel.
(16) As I hob-nobbed with friends, family and the invited guests of the RI at the drinks reception beforehand, my mind kept flitting back to my notes.
(17) And so he flits from past to present and back again, making connections with a wry and scathing wit.
(18) The patient presented with fever, flitting polyarthritis and an elevated erythrocyte sedimentation rate.
(19) Flitting between at least three properties nestled on white sand beaches and manicured golf courses, he applied for temporary residency and even enrolled on the country's electoral register.
(20) His songs were the soundtrack to my life: a quavering New York voice with little range singing songs of alienation and despair, with flashes of impossible hope and of those tiny, perfect days and nights we want to last for ever, important because they are so finite and so few; songs filled with people, some named, some anonymous, who strut and stagger and flit and shimmy and hitch-hike into the limelight and out again.