Word.ws English Dictionary

perfunctorily

/pəɹˈfʌŋkt(ə)ɹɪli/

perfunctorily adverb: in a perfunctory manner, without interest or concern for quality.

Adverb

perfunctorily (comparative more perfunctorily, superlative most perfunctorily)

  1. In a perfunctory manner, without interest or concern for quality.
    • And it was while all were passionately intent upon the pleasing and snake-like progress of their uncle that a young girl in furs, ascending the stairs two at a time, peeped perfunctorily into the nursery as she passed the hallway—and halted amazed.1907 August, Robert W[illiam] Chambers, chapter I, in The Younger Set, New York, N.Y.: D. Appleton & Company, →OCLC
    • She answered perfunctorily. She said that, of course, they had picked out the two gunmen, but had thought nothing of it when the man with the stick had gone to stand behind Bond's chair.1953, Ian Fleming, “‘La Vie En Rose’”, in Casino Royale, London: Pan Books, published 1955, page 100

Examples of perfunctorily in a sentence

  • Lim Cheng Po said an Anglican prayer or two, not too perfunctorily.1959, Anthony Burgess, Beds in the East (The Malayan Trilogy), published 1972, page 606:
  • The conductor takes the instrument from his unresisting hands and breaks its neck underfoot, perfunctorily, as if crushing a box for recycling.2019 April 10, qntm, “CASE HATE RED”, in There Is No Antimemetics Division, →ISBN, page 138:

Forms of perfunctorily

comparativemore perfunctorily
superlativemost perfunctorily

Origin of perfunctorily

From perfunctory + -ly.

Questions about perfunctorily

What does perfunctorily mean?
Perfunctorily means in a perfunctory manner, without interest or concern for quality.
How do you use perfunctorily in a sentence?
Lim Cheng Po said an Anglican prayer or two, not too perfunctorily.
What part of speech is perfunctorily?
Perfunctorily is an adverb.
How do you pronounce perfunctorily?
Perfunctorily is pronounced /pəɹˈfʌŋkt(ə)ɹɪli/.

Words near perfunctorily in the dictionary

  1. perfumiers
  2. perfuming
  3. perfumista
  4. perfumistas
  5. perfumy
  6. perfunctorily
  7. perfunctoriness
  8. perfunctorious
  9. perfunctoriously
  10. perfunctory
  11. perfusability

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: perfunctorily (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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