How to use perfunctory in a sentence
10 example sentences · adjective
Perfunctory means done only or merely to conform to a minimal standard or to fulfill a protocol or presumptive duty. Example: “He did a perfunctory job cleaning his dad's car, finishing quickly but leaving a few spots still dirty.”
Examples of perfunctory by meaning
adjectiveDone only or merely to conform to a minimal standard or to fulfill a protocol or presumptive duty.
- a perfunctory kiss
- The assembled members of the tribe looked on and listened in a sort of dull and perfunctory apathy, for the speaker was by far the mightiest of the clan.1918, Edgar Rice Burroughs, chapter VIII, in The Land That Time Forgot
- He then poured some wine for me to taste, and harassed me with perfunctory courtesies that had to be acknowledged.1976 September, Saul Bellow, Humboldt’s Gift, New York, N.Y.: Avon Books, →ISBN, page 338
adjectivePerformed in a careless or indifferent manner as a thing of rote.
- He did a perfunctory job cleaning his dad's car, finishing quickly but leaving a few spots still dirty.
- Alternatively it may mean that a perfunctory search is enough to ensure that a purchase is acceptable, so less search is carried out.1992, Peter Bowbrick, The Economics of Quality, Grades, and Brands, page 55
More sentences with perfunctory
- It's lazy, it's specious, it's perfunctory, and it's utterly without depth.2023, Peter Turchi, (Don't) Stop Me if You've Heard This Before, page 107. From the entry antisemantic
- The brief segments trying to generate thriller-type suspense are disposably perfunctory.2008, Jon L. Breen, A Shot Rang Out: Selected Mystery Criticism, page 274. From the entry disposably
- Lamprecht knew very well how the war was going and was perfunctory in his rounding up of Jews and cenobites.1980, Anthony Burgess, Earthly Powers, page 418. From the entry cenobite
- Her descriptions of the greed and lawlessness of the California frontier feel perfunctory and secondhand, as do her predictable paeans to the opportunities afforded immigrants by the United States.1999 November 2, Michiko Kakutani, “Books of The Times: A Single Girl Takes On the California Frontier”, in The New York Times (E…. From the entry paean
- Chamberlain’s vagueness in his perfunctory replies to the “freefooders”—all such and sundry were comprehendedly possible reasons for one to make a respectable quietus with a bare bodkin.1906 February 7, “The Contributor: An Alleged Prevailing Epidemic”, in The Sydney Mail and New South Wales Advertiser, volume LXXXI…. From the entry comprehendedly
Meaning of perfunctory
- adjective Done only or merely to conform to a minimal standard or to fulfill a protocol or presumptive duty.
- adjective Performed in a careless or indifferent manner as a thing of rote.
Questions about perfunctory in a sentence
- How do you use perfunctory in a sentence?
- Perfunctory is used as an adjective. For example: “He did a perfunctory job cleaning his dad's car, finishing quickly but leaving a few spots still dirty.”
- What is a short sentence with perfunctory?
- “a perfunctory kiss”
- What does perfunctory mean?
- Perfunctory means done only or merely to conform to a minimal standard or to fulfill a protocol or presumptive duty.
Source and license
Adapted from Wiktionary: perfunctory (page history and authors) and the entries each sentence comes from. Text available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 license. Word.ws chose the sentences, left out offensive ones and quotations older than 1900, and marked the word in each. Wiktionary data of 2026-09-02.
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Cite this page: “How to use perfunctory in a sentence.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/sentences/perfunctory. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.