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Sunday November 22, 2009

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perfunctory [pur-FUNGK-tuh-ree]

adjective

1. Done merely to complete a duty; performed mechanically or superficially.
2. Indifferent; careless; lacking enthusiasm.

• For dine-in customers, lunch is neon-pink tandoori chicken, very moist, sitting on a bed of white onion; trays of lush butter chicken, slow-simmered mild lentils and spinach with Indian cheese; a perfunctory iceberg salad; tasty vegetable pakora; and a quartet of sauces (a tamarind to add a sweet intensity to dishes, a spicy cilantro sauce, a cooling raita and a zingy onion pickle); and a nurturing rice pudding. It's all competently made and very mild, made to mix and match over rice and scoop up with warm, tender naan.
  Laura Reiley, "AN INDIAN FRIEND RETURNS; It's good to have India Grill back in downtown St. Petersburg, even if refinements are needed", St. Petersburg Times, Nov 5, 2009
• Scene changes are often accompanied by country-music interludes, and a few are really enjoyable (e.g., the songs about Route 66 and used cars), but most seem disconnected and perfunctory. At times, narrators appear onstage to introduce or connect scenes. For the most part, these speeches feel assigned rather than meant.
  Anita Gates, "So Much Hardship To Convey", New York Times, Nov 1, 2009
• I stroked the beast, which lay down at my feet, raising its head sometimes to whine, and sometimes darting off a little way and coming back to tug at the lower edge of my overcoat. But my mind was too much occupied for me to take any but a perfunctory interest in its manoeuvres.
  Victor Rousseau Emanuel (1879 - 1960) A British writer of pulp fiction. Jacqueline of Golden River (1920)

Origin of the Word

Perfunctory, approximately 1581, derives from Lat Latin, from Latin perfungi "work through," from per- "through" + fungi "perform."