Perfunctory

(a.) Done merely to get rid of a duty; performed mechanically and as a thing of rote; done in a careless and superficial manner; characterized by indifference; as, perfunctory admonitions.

(a.) Hence: Mechanical; indifferent; listless; careless.

塞西尔编辑

• But I was to learn that the Martian smile is merely perfunctory, and that the Martian laugh is a thing to cause strong men to blanch in horror. 埃德加·赖斯·巴勒斯. 火星公主.
• Deliberation will be perfunctory and superficial where there is no interest. 约翰·杜威. 民主与教育.
• Labor receives only a perfunctory and largely disingenuous attention; even commerce is handled in a way that expresses neither its direction nor its public use. 沃尔特·李普曼. 政治序论.
• These socialists think entirely in terms of the factory population of cities: the farmers, the small shop-keepers, the professional classes have only a perfunctory interest for them. 沃尔特·李普曼. 政治序论.
• But for the affairs of statecraft, for the very policies that a Roosevelt advocates, the interest is largely perfunctory, maintained out of a sense of duty and dropped with a sigh of relief. 沃尔特·李普曼. 政治序论.

手打:洛雷塔