Desultory vs Puerile - What's the difference?
desultory | puerile |
Jumping, or passing, from one thing or subject to another, without order or rational connection; without logical sequence.
* 1850 , , Chapter 25
Out of course; by the way; as a digression; not connected with the subject.
Disappointing in performance or progress.
(obsolete) Leaping, skipping or flitting about, generally in a random or unsteady manner.
Characteristic of, or pertaining to, a boy or boys; confer : puellile.
Childish; trifling; silly.
* (rfdate) De Quincey:
* 1927 , , page 79:
* '>citation
As adjectives the difference between desultory and puerile
is that desultory is jumping, or passing, from one thing or subject to another, without order or rational connection; without logical sequence while puerile is characteristic of, or pertaining to, a boy or boys; confer: puellile.desultory
English
Adjective
(en adjective)- 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.
- He wandered round, cleaning up in a desultory way.
- I teach a class of desultory minds.
- I made a desultory remark while I was talking to my friend.
- She made a desultory attempt at conversation.
Synonyms
* (proceeding without rational order or connection) disconnected; unmethodical; aimlessDerived terms
* desultorilyReferences
*puerile
English
Adjective
(en adjective)- The French have been notorious through generations for their puerile affectation of Roman forms, models, and historic precedents.
- From the table he had received the gout; from the alcove a tendency to convulsions; from the grandeeship a pride so vast and puerile that he seldom heard anything that was said to him and talked to the ceiling in a perpetual monologue; from the exile, oceans of boredom, a boredom so persuasive that it was like pain,—he woke up with it and spent the day with it, and it sat by his bed all night watching his sleep.