Word.ws English Dictionary

desultory

UK/ˈdɛs.əl.t(ə).ɹi//ˈdɛs.əlˌtɔɹ.i/

desultory adjective: jumping, or passing, from one thing or subject to another, without order, planning, or rational connection; lacking logical sequence.

desultory: white and brown wooden desk
Photo by Solstice Hannan on Unsplash

Adjective

desultory (comparative more desultory, superlative most desultory)

  1. Jumping, or passing, from one thing or subject to another, without order, planning, or rational connection; lacking logical sequence.
    • Near-synonyms: aimless, chaotic, disconnected, erratic, haphazard, meandering, quodlibetic, quodlibetical, random, rambling, scattered, unmethodical, unsystematic, wandering
    • He wandered round, cleaning up in a desultory way.
  2. Out of course; by the way; not connected with the subject.
    • Near-synonyms: extraneous, incidental, irrelevant, nongermane, spurious, stray, unconnected, ungermane, unrelated
    • I made a desultory remark while I was talking to my friend.
  3. Disappointing in performance or progress.
    • Near-synonyms: half-assed, halfhearted
    • As we stood waiting for the departure time with the setting sun twinkling on the great brass dome of our 2-4-0, the sound of church bells was the only one apart from the measured tread of the guard slowly pacing towards his van, and, standing at an open window, I more than once heard the fireman's...1955 January, R. S. McNaught, “From the Severn to the Mersey by Great Western”, in Railway Magazine, page 19
  4. (obsolete) Leaping, skipping or flitting about, generally in a random or unsteady manner.

desultory meaning in Tamil, Urdu, Bengali and Malayalam

desultory in Tamil

இடையிடை விட்ட, தொடர்பற்ற, முறையற்ற

desultory in Urdu

بلاسر پیر, جلد باز, اوٹ پٹانگ بکنے والا

desultory in Bengali

লক্ষ্যহীন, এলোমেলো, পরিকল্পিত নয়

desultory in Malayalam

cursory, casual, superficial
അലക്ഷ്യമായ, ഉദാസീനമായ, അശ്രദ്ധം, ക്രമമോ മുറയോ ഇല്ലാത്ത, വന്നപടിയുള്ള, അധികം ശ്രദ്ധയില്ലാതെയുള്ള
More languagesFewer languages
desultory in Kannada
ತಗಹುತಪ್ಪಿದ, ಹೊಂದಿಕೊಳ್ಳದ

Examples of desultory in a sentence

  • I teach a class of desultory minds.
  • subject to desultory fire from the enemy
  • She made a desultory attempt at conversation.
  • To mend the matter, Hamlet's aunt had the family failing of indulging in soliloquy, and held forth in a desultory manner, by herself, on every topic that was introduced.1849 May – 1850 November, Charles Dickens, chapter 25, in The Personal History of David Copperfield, London: Bradbury & Evans, […]...
  • ‘Your desultory twenties,’ my mother calls my lost time, trying to make it sound reasonable and fun, but it started before I was twenty and lasted much longer.2010, Jennifer Egan, “You (Plural)”, in A Visit from the Goon Squad:

Synonyms of desultory

15 more synonymsFewer synonyms

Antonyms

All synonyms and antonyms of desultory

Forms of desultory

comparativemore desultory
superlativemost desultory

Origin of desultory

From Latin dēsultōrius (“hasty, casual, superficial”), from dēsultor (“a circus rider who jumped from one galloping horse to another”), from dēsiliō (“jump down”), from dē (“down”) + saliō (“jump, leap”).

Words formed from desultory

Questions about desultory

What does desultory mean?
Desultory means jumping, or passing, from one thing or subject to another, without order, planning, or rational connection; lacking logical sequence.
What is desultory in Tamil?
Desultory in Tamil is இடையிடை விட்ட, தொடர்பற்ற, முறையற்ற. See Desultory meaning in Tamil.
How do you use desultory in a sentence?
I teach a class of desultory minds.
What part of speech is desultory?
Desultory is an adjective.
How do you pronounce desultory?
Desultory is pronounced /ˈdɛs.əl.t(ə).ɹi/ (UK).

Words near desultory in the dictionary

  1. desultorily
  2. desultoriness
  3. desultorinesses
  4. desultorious
  5. desultors
  6. desultory
  7. desume
  8. desumed
  9. desumoylase
  10. desumoylases
  11. desumoylate

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: desultory (page history and authors); desultory (Tamil Wiktionary) (page history and authors); desultory (Urdu Wiktionary) (page history and authors); Desultory (Bengali Wiktionary) (page history and authors); desultory (Olam, E.K. Kurup corpus) (dataset and license); desultory (Kannada Wiktionary) (page history and authors). Text available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 license. Word.ws reformatted the entry and added links. Wiktionary data of 2026-09-02.

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Cite this entry: “desultory.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/desultory. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.