She could not be negative or perfunctory about anything.

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.

And have made answer in the same low, perfunctory tone

The barn was empty when the horses turned into it and, after giving them the most perfunctory ministrations they had ever received from him, he strode up to the house and pushed open the kitchen door.

The prosecution was spiritless and perfunctory ; the defense easily established--with regard to the deceased--an alibi.

He thought it odd, and with a little perfunctory shiver, as if in deference to a seasonal presumption that the night was chill, he lay down again and went to sleep.

It suddenly occurred to the youth that the fight in which he had been was, after all, but perfunctory popping.

But none of these young men had much hope of really advancing in his profession, or any earnest desire to do so; and over many of them the green mould of the perfunctory was already perceptibly spreading.

But he had no hesitation in doing all manner of things without more than a perfunctory consultation with the Vicar, and the Vicar, though always ready to be saved trouble, much resented the churchwarden's managing ways.

I revelled in all his appearances in the Histories, and I tried to be as happy where a factitious and perfunctory Falstaff comes to life again in the "Merry Wives of Windsor," though at the bottom of my heart I felt the difference.

A sentry stood at the iron gates and passed Major Thomson after a perfunctory challenge.