Do we say perfunctory or peremptory

perfunctory 158 occurrences

The lady was not even at the pains to notice the perfunctory civility.

The Atterburys, understanding the natural feelings of the family, made only perfunctory opposition.

" He called to Brutus to toss more wood upon the fire, leaned back for a while, holding his glass to the light of the flames, and turned to me again with his cool, perfunctory smile.

First come seventeen pages of history, mentioning with perfunctory comment the best known poets of classical antiquity and of England.

"It was, at best, but a perfunctory business, half arranged by our parents to keep the millions together" "You never blamed me a little, then?"

The circumstance seemed singular, becausenow that she rememberedwhen Sofia had expressed perfunctory curiosity concerning what precautions were taken to safeguard the jewels, Lady Randolph West had airily informed her that she considered insurance to their appraised value plus a stout lock on the boudoir door better than any strong-box as yet devised by the ingenuity of man.

Later Victorian writers, like Meredith, Hardy, Swinburne, and Kipling, can no longer be accorded the usual brief perfunctory treatment.

was not what would be called a religious man; he performed his religious duties regularly, but in a perfunctory manner.

He saw her, turned, and raised his hat, but in a perfunctory, preoccupied manner; and instantly resumed the speech to his companion.

Especially, when one considers the perfunctory way in which some of the most exalted tasks are already executed by those who are understood to be educated for them, there rises a fearful vision of the human race evolving machinery which will by-and-by throw itself fatally out of work.

Books, of all things, should be tended by reverent hands; and, to my mind, the perfunctory in things ecclesiastical is hardly more distressing than the service of books as conducted in many great libraries.

The very frequent complaint that "the last act is weak" is not always or necessarily a just reproach; but it is so when the author has clearly been at a loss for an ending, and has simply huddled his play up in a conventional and perfunctory fashion.

Miss Nugent walked into the sitting-room, and listening in a perfunctory fashion to a shipmaster's platitude on kitchen-company, took a seat on his knee and kissed his ear.

His mouth was set, mask-like, and his breathing was a little perfunctory.

Prather made a perfunctory movement as if for a card-case, but apparently changed his mind under the prompting suggestion that it was superfluous.

Mr. Grimm, looking on, exhibited only a most perfunctory interest in the extraordinary message he was reading; the listless eyes narrowed a little, that was all.

Finally he turned to his chief: "What do we know, here in the bureau, about Miss Thorne?" "Thus far the reports on her are of the usual perfunctory nature," Mr. Campbell explained.

There was more than mere perfunctory thanks in thisthere was the understanding of man and man.

In the summer of 1771 he returned to Frankfurt once more, this time with the title of licentiate in law, and began to practise in a perfunctory way, with his heart in his literary projects.

But his daughter's sleepy attempt to concern herself about his breakfast and the perfunctory caress of that slack unconscious hand had the effect of the climax of it all.

MR. ARNOLD BENNETT'S new novel, The Roll Call (HUTCHINSON), is a continuation of the Clayhanger series to the extent that its hero, George Cannon, is the stepson of Edwin, who himself makes a perfunctory appearance at the close of the tale.

For the last eighteen months visits at the Vicarage had been perfunctory and very brief, month by month they had diminished, and before Mary's marriage they had almost ceased.

And art thou sure she will not fall back from her promise to thee?" Cantemir, filled with his own ideas, gave perfunctory acquiescence and continued in his own line of thought.

It was necessary to the decorum of her character that she should admonish her erring children, but her admonitions were given in a somewhat perfunctory manner.

"With your Lordship's permission, my Junior will settle the minutes;" i.e., "And so save us both the trouble of apportioning, in the customary perfunctory fashion, the oyster to the solicitors, and the shells to the clients.

peremptory 407 occurrences

They came up to me and bade me come with them in tones which were peremptory enough; but what of that?better the most peremptory supervision than the lawlessness from which I had come.

They came up to me and bade me come with them in tones which were peremptory enough; but what of that?better the most peremptory supervision than the lawlessness from which I had come.

For this, however, the royal licence was required; and, as when I made a similar request during the fur-chase of the Southern season, I met with a peremptory refusal.

But I dared not leave her, and she was pleased by a peremptory decision which made her the companion of my absence, without leaving room for discussion or question.

A severe look would have overpowered her; a peremptory command would have compelled obedience.

I am peremptory that it shall be so.

I shall never again, I said, on the wide gates unfolding, say without fear of thrusting back, in a light but a peremptory air, "I am going to Mr. Cary's."

Where all my eloquence had failed, she checked that joyously anticipative rabble by the simple query, set in the chillest and most peremptory of aristocratic tones, as to what they were doing.

The constitutional duty of the President is plain and peremptory and the authority vested in him by law for its performance clear and ample.

The tone of the letter of instructions from Mr. Manuel Bertran de Lis is somewhat more peremptory than could be wished, but this circumstance will not, probably, prevent Congress from giving his suggestions the attention to which they may be entitled.

With her must be used, morally certainly, perhaps physically, the peremptory reason to the slaves of the old race: The Stick!"

At last the following peremptory reproof was addressed to him: Queen Victoria to Lord John Russell, Osborne, August 12, 1850 ...

Before these events Palmerston had resigned on the ground that the attitude of the Government towards Russia was not sufficiently stiff and peremptory; for, from the first, Lord Aberdeen had never contemplated the possibility of war with Russia.

Under Lord John and Palmerston our own foreign policy had been bold and peremptory; the policy of France was directed by Napoleon, whose head, as Palmerston said, was as full of schemes as a rabbit-warren is of rabbits; and the quarrel of 1852 between Prussia and Denmark had arisen again in a far acuter form.

This menacing, peremptory attitude in diplomacy served him well, till Bismarck crossed his path.

"You don't know what you are doing, child," she said with a peremptory accent of authority.

I remained in jail until discharged by a peremptory order from the Colonial Secretary, to whom I appealed.

He had kept his chamber for several weeks; but the summons of the magistrate had been delivered to him at his bed-side, his orders respecting letters and written papers being so peremptory that no one dared to disobey them.

He says"Great objections have been made to the clauses which denounce eternal damnation against those who do not believe the faith as here stated; and it certainly is to be lamented that assertions of so peremptory a nature, unexplained and unqualified, should have been used in any human composition....

The tone of the present appeal was more impatient and peremptory than the last; and the answer was more promptly and sternly pronounced: 'It's honour, brother!'

Conscious that his counsels had hitherto been either disregarded or rendered abortive by the King himself, the Duke endeavoured to escape this new demand upon his patience, but Henry was peremptory.

Eyoub's orders to cross the frontier with his solid column of thirty to forty thousand men, and march straight to Athens if the attacks persisted another day, were peremptory, and there was no force or dispositions of defense to prevent his triumphal movement.

Further accounts of their having been seen in that place had reached England, and the King had sent a peremptory order to the Colonial governments for their apprehension.

After the chicken came a balloon-like figure in a sky-blue bathrobe, uttering breathless grunts which were evidently intended to be peremptory commands to the chicken to halt its flight.

Very different from his usual peremptory self was the big rancher to-night, very obvious, pathetically so, his effort to appear natural.

Do we say   perfunctory   or  peremptory