(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.
Obscure
Definition:
(superl.) Covered over, shaded, or darkened; destitute of light; imperfectly illuminated; dusky; dim.
(superl.) Of or pertaining to darkness or night; inconspicuous to the sight; indistinctly seen; hidden; retired; remote from observation; unnoticed.
(superl.) Not noticeable; humble; mean.
(superl.) Not easily understood; not clear or legible; abstruse or blind; as, an obscure passage or inscription.
(superl.) Not clear, full, or distinct; clouded; imperfect; as, an obscure view of remote objects.
(a.) To render obscure; to darken; to make dim; to keep in the dark; to hide; to make less visible, intelligible, legible, glorious, beautiful, or illustrious.
(v. i.) To conceal one's self; to hide; to keep dark.
(n.) Obscurity.
Example Sentences:
(1) This diagnosis was obscured by the absence of cutaneous, oropharyngeal, and respiratory involvement.
(2) The mechanism of ACTH action on brain catecholamine metabolism is still obscure, however, an increased release of the NA to ACTH peptides is very likely in the light of the present observations.
(3) However, peptide bonds between 193 and 194, and 194 and 195 were cleaved in the presence of mAb 1C3 as easily as in the presence of mAb 31A4, suggesting that the region of residues 200 to 202 was obscured by, or within the antibody binding site, but that the region of residues 193 to 195 was not.
(4) The physician's approach to the differential diagnosis of obscure, atypical pneumonias has changed.
(5) The thigh and hip manifestations can obscure the primary intra-abdominal process either due to the obvious emphysema or to the obtunded abdominal signs secondary to associated neuropathy.
(6) While tonic pupil and reduced sweating can be attributed to the affection of postganglionic cholinergic parasympathetic and sympathetic fibres projecting to the iris and sweat glands, respectively, the pathogenesis of diminished or lost tendon jerks remains obscure.
(7) It is found that generic averages obscure some rather substantial differences at the species level for both Cercopithecus and Cercocebus.
(8) Although the pathophysiology of the pancreatic injury is obscure, the lack of other etiological factors and temporal association of the pancreatitis with acetaminophen-induced hepatic and renal toxicity suggest a causal relationship.
(9) Because reticulocytes contain a pool of uncombined alpha chains which might have obscured the demonstration of an alpha chain-dependent mechanism for beta-chain synthesis, subsequent studies were done with bone marrow cells.
(10) However, the mechanism by which Ag II is able to modulate anterior pituitary secretion still remains obscure.
(11) Other causes were 20 (13%) with cerebrovascular diseases, 30 (20%) hepatic failure and 11 (8%) were of miscellaneous and obscure causes.
(12) In such a case with a large hematoma, the presence of a tumor may be obscured on CT scan and angiography.
(13) However, the difficulty still remains that the latter may be obscured by differences not related to thermostability etc.
(14) The activating mechanism of the condition still remains obscure.
(15) Its language is “archaic and obscure”, the commission says.
(16) Clofibrate, an antilipidemic drug that acts by a still obscure mechanism, is known to specifically increase up to 30-fold the activity of the hepatic cytochrome P-450 isozyme that omega-hydroxlates lauric acid.
(17) On the electron microscopy, the sarcomere was shortened and Z-line was partly obscure.
(18) Photographs of 82 boys from the Harpenden Growth Study were measured at ages 5 to 18 years, in an order that obscured which photographs were of the same boy at different ages.
(19) Although the K+ concentration of the contents of the GI tract as well as the K+ transport by the portal vein were increased, the source of the excess K+ remains obscure.
(20) The effects of long-term exposure of humans to formaldehyde, however, are more obscure.