What's the difference between desultory and passing?

Desultory


Definition:

  • (a.) Leaping or skipping about.
  • (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.

Passing


Definition:

  • (p. pr. & vb. n.) of Pass
  • (n.) The act of one who, or that which, passes; the act of going by or away.
  • (a.) Relating to the act of passing or going; going by, beyond, through, or away; departing.
  • (a.) Exceeding; surpassing, eminent.
  • (adv.) Exceedingly; excessively; surpassingly; as, passing fair; passing strange.

Example Sentences:

  • (1) Samples are hydrolyzed with Ba (OH)2, and the hydrolysate is passed through a Dowex-50 column to remove the salts and soluble carbohydrates.
  • (2) "They wanted to pass it almost like a secret negotiation," she said.
  • (3) Comparison of developmental series of D. merriami and T. bottae revealed that the decline of the artery in the latter species is preceded by a greater degree of arterial coarctation, or narrowing, as it passes though the developing stapes.
  • (4) That’s a criticism echoed by Democrats in the Senate, who issued a report earlier this month criticising Republicans for passing sweeping legislation in July to combat addiction , the Comprehensive Addiction and Recovery Act (Cara), but refusing to fund it.
  • (5) Ten or 4% of the administered parasites passed in the feces during the 3 days following the first or second infection, but 32% after the third infection.
  • (6) David Hamilton tells me: “The days of westerners leading expeditions to Nepal will pass.
  • (7) Their narrowed processes pass at a common site through the muscle layer and above this layer again slightly widen and project above the neighbouring tegument.
  • (8) They could go out and trade for a pitcher such as the New York Mets’ Bartolo Colón , an obvious choice despite his 41 years, but he would come with an $11m price tag for next season and have to pass through the waiver wires process first – considering the wily mood Billy Beane is in this year, the A’s could be the team that blocks such a move.
  • (9) Wharton feared that if his bill had not cleared the Commons on this occasion, it would have failed as there are only three sitting Fridays in the Commons next year when the legislation could be heard again should peers in the House of Lords successfully pass amendments.
  • (10) Much less obvious – except in the fictional domain of the C Thomas Howell film Soul Man – is why someone would want to “pass” in the other direction and voluntarily take on the weight of racial oppression.
  • (11) Approximately 50% of a bolus injection of 125I-ANP was removed during a single pass through the lungs compared with the intravascular marker 14C-dextran.
  • (12) The New York Times also alleged that the Met had not passed full details about how many people were victims of the illegal practice to the CPS because it has a history of cooperation with News International titles.
  • (13) To evaluate the acute changes in left ventricular (LV) performance before and immediately after percutaneous aortic valvuloplasty, 25 patients underwent first-pass radionuclide angiocardiography for construction of pressure-volume loops.
  • (14) He has also been a vocal opponent of gay marriage, appearing on the Today programme in the run-up to the same-sex marriage bill to warn that it would "cause confusion" – and asking in a Spectator column, after it was passed, "if the law will eventually be changed to allow one to marry one's dog".
  • (15) The resolution must be passed by both houses but cannot be amended.
  • (16) The frequency spectra of transmission coefficients for ultrasound passing through a sheet of gas-filled micropores have been measured using incident waves with amplitudes up to 2.4 x 10(4) Pa.
  • (17) Whether out of fear, indifference or a sense of impotence, the general population has learned to turn away, like commuters speeding by on the freeways to the suburbs, unseeingly passing over the squalor.
  • (18) The court hearing – in a case of the kind likely to be heard in secret if the government's justice and security bill is passed – was requested by the law firm Leigh Day and the legal charity Reprieve, acting for Serdar Mohammed, tortured by the Afghan security services after being transferred to their custody by UK forces.
  • (19) This Doppler echocardiographic study of patients with a dual chamber pacemaker was undertaken to assess the changes in mitral and aortic flow induced by passing from the double stimulation to the atrial detection mode.
  • (20) Eleven patients spontaneously passed the calculus, ten prior to delivery and one patient postpartum.