xml:space="preserve">
xml:space="preserve">
Advertisement
Advertisement

In a word: Desultory

Each week The Sun's John McIntyre presents a moderately obscure but evocative word with which you may not be familiar — another brick to add to the wall of your working vocabulary. This week's word:

DESULTORY

Advertisement

When you feel unfocused or find yourself proceeding haphazardly, the word to reach for to describe yourself is

desultory

Advertisement
Advertisement

(pronounced DES-ul-tor-ee). We get it in English from the Latin

desultorius

, or "leaping," from

desilire

Advertisement

, " to vault, "to jump down." This sense of jumping from one thing to another gives us the English sense of lacking a plan, or purpose, or enthusiasm; being unfocused; or occurring randomly or occasionally. The weekly series you're reading now is a desultory rambling through the English vocabulary.

Example:

William Cowper: "The earth was made so various, that the mind of desultory man, studious of change, and pleased with novelty, might be indulged."

Recommended on Baltimore Sun

Advertisement
Advertisement
Advertisement
Advertisement
Advertisement
Advertisement
Advertisement