Meanings
- uncountableThe characteristic or state of being perfunctory.
Claudia accomplished some shopping in the spirit of perfunctoriness that robs even new bonnets of their bloom.
1901, Edith Wharton, “The Recovery”, in Crucial Instances2 more examples
When at dusk she reached the Melchester station her husband was there to meet her, but in his perfunctoriness and her preoccupation they did not see each other, and she went out of the station alone.
1894, Thomas Hardy, “On the Western Circuit”, in Life’s Little Ironies […], London: Osgood, McIlvaine and Co., […], →OCLC, section VI, page 121His hard-core images are delivered with a ho-hum perfunctoriness that often enervates his surfaces. . . . [H]is orgies are inert.
2006 November 30, David Cohen, “A Bit Nasty to Women, But Respectful to Dishware”, in New York Sun, retrieved 28 Jun 2011Synonyms: automaticity, mechanicality, mechanicalness
Synonyms & antonyms
nounThe characteristic or state of being perfunctory.
Origin
Cite this entry
perfunctoriness. (n.d.). In WatkinsX Dictionary. Retrieved November 3, 2026, from https://dictionary.watkinsx.com/word/perfunctoriness
“perfunctoriness.” WatkinsX Dictionary, https://dictionary.watkinsx.com/word/perfunctoriness. Accessed November 3, 2026.
WatkinsX Dictionary, s.v. “perfunctoriness,” accessed November 3, 2026, https://dictionary.watkinsx.com/word/perfunctoriness.
Source: perfunctoriness on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.