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What Is the Difference Between cursory, superficial, and shallow?
Let your cursor linger long enough on our pages, and you’ll be surprised at how much you can quickly discover. Consider the entry for cursory, for example. If you surmise after a mere cursory glance that there’s not much to know about a word with a single sense (“hastily done or made”), you may want to hold your horses. There’s so much to find, including a helpful guide to choosing synonyms of cursory, such as shallow and superficial, that also describe things done with a lack of attention or care. There’s also an etymology section, where one learns that cursory was borrowed from the Medieval Latin adjective cursōrius, which described things that were swift or related to running, and which in turn comes from the Latin noun cursor, meaning “runner.” This fact may prompt you to jog over to the entries of other cursor descendants, such as cursorial (“adapted to or involving running,” as in “cursorial insects”) and, well, cursor.
Examples of cursory in a Sentence
Bilge Ebiri, Vulture, 2 July 2025
But responses can take days, and even then, evaluations are often cursory, according to detainees and their families.
—Dhruv Mehrotra, Wired News, 25 June 2025
Revelations about the physical and mental health of presidential candidates often tend to be cursory and minimal.
—Chicago Tribune, 23 June 2025
The study also calls into question the efficacy of U.S. Supreme Court decisions requiring warrants for blood draws in most circumstances and in other instances, when their review is so cursory.
—Lars Daniel, Forbes.com, 11 June 2025
See All Example Sentences for cursory
Cite this Entry
“Cursory.” Merriam-Webster.com Dictionary, Merriam-Webster, https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/cursory. Accessed 21 Jul. 2025.
Copy CitationKids Definition
cursory
adjective
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