DESULTORY

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 Dictionary entry overview: What does desultory mean? 

• DESULTORY (adjective)
  The adjective DESULTORY has 1 sense:

1. marked by lack of definite plan or regularity or purpose; jumping from one thing to another

  Familiarity information: DESULTORY used as an adjective is very rare.

 Dictionary entry details 

• DESULTORY (adjective)

Sense 1

Meaning:

Marked by lack of definite plan or regularity or purpose; jumping from one thing to another

Context example:

the desultory conversation characteristic of cocktail parties

Similar:

purposeless (not evidencing any purpose or goal)

 Context examples 

At first the conversation was desultory.

(Martin Eden, by Jack London)

Miss Bates had just done as Patty opened the door; and her visitors walked upstairs without having any regular narration to attend to, pursued only by the sounds of her desultory good-will.

(Emma, by Jane Austen)

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.

(David Copperfield, by Charles Dickens)

Our client appeared to have taken fresh heart at the little glimpse of hope which had been presented to him, and he even broke into a desultory chat with me over his business affairs.

(The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes, by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle)

Whatever it was, it simmered to some purpose, for he grew more and more discontented with his desultory life, began to long for some real and earnest work to go at, soul and body, and finally came to the wise conclusion that everyone who loved music was not a composer.

(Little Women, by Louisa May Alcott)

It was after tea on a summer evening, and the conversation, which had roamed in a desultory, spasmodic fashion from golf clubs to the causes of the change in the obliquity of the ecliptic, came round at last to the question of atavism and hereditary aptitudes.

(The Memoirs of Sherlock Holmes, by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle)

She entreated that there might be no more searching; but it was still sought for, in a desultory way, until she was quite well, and the company took their departure.

(David Copperfield, by Charles Dickens)

The remainder of the dinner passed like a funeral, the judge and Mr. Morse confining their talk to each other, and the rest of the conversation being extremely desultory.

(Martin Eden, by Jack London)