Desultorius

Part of speech: adjective

Definitions

1. Characterized by a lack of consistency or order, often involving jumpiness from one topic to another
2. displaying an aimless quality that can lead to a wandering or disconnected approach
3. frequently shifting focus without a clear direction or purpose

Etymology: Latin "desultorius" meant "of or for a vaulter," and the vaulter was a real performer: the desultor rode two horses at once at a gallop, leaping from one to the other, which is why the word carried a sense of skipping about rather than staying put. It was built from "desultor," itself from "desilire," "to leap down," which combines "de-" ("down, away") with "salire," "to leap." The sense of jumping from one thing to another moved into the figurative. Latin writers used "desultorius" of a speaker or writer who hopped between topics, and the idea of mental or practical hopping, rather than steady progress, is what English inherited. A desultory conversation or effort is one that lurches from point to point without a clear course. Across the centuries the word kept its bodily image faintly visible: the aimlessness of the description is really the aimlessness of a rider who never settles on one horse.

Synonyms: desultory, random, aimless, unmethodical, disconnected

Antonyms: methodical, systematic, organized