desultory.
Jumping, or passing, from one thing or subject to another, without order, planning, or rational connection; lacking logical sequence.
Meaning & usage
Jumping, or passing, from one thing or subject to another, without order, planning, or rational connection; lacking logical sequence.
He wandered round, cleaning up in a desultory way.
I teach a class of desultory minds.
Out of course; by the way; not connected with the subject.
I made a desultory remark while I was talking to my friend.
She made a desultory attempt at conversation.
Disappointing in performance or progress.
Leaping, skipping or flitting about, generally in a random or unsteady manner.
Where this word comes from
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”).
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Definitions, grammatical labels, IPA, etymology and examples: Wiktionary contributors, extracted by Kaikki / Wiktextract. Adapted under CC BY-SA 4.0. Selected fields and authored examples are shown; third-party quotations and audio are omitted. See contributor history.
Last enriched 2026-09-10. Definitions are in English. Romanizations are shown when supplied by the source; syllable estimates are omitted for unsupported scripts.