cursory

English[edit]

Borrowed from Middle French cursoire (“rapid”), from Latin cursorius (“hasty, of a race or running”).

cursory (comparative more cursory, superlative most cursory)

Hasty or superficial.
cursory glance

Most junk mail requires only a cursory glance.
- 1818, [Mary Shelley], chapter I, in Frankenstein; or, The Modern Prometheus. […], volume I, London: […] [Macdonald and Son] for Lackington, Hughes, Harding, Mavor, & Jones, →OCLC, page 53:
  But the cursory glance my father had taken of my volume by no means assured me that he was acquainted with its contents, and I continued to read with the greatest avidity.
- 1891, Thomas Hardy, Tess of the d’Urbervilles: A Pure Woman Faithfully Presented […], volumes (please specify |volume=I to III), London: James R[ipley] Osgood, McIlvaine and Co., […], →OCLC:
  She accepted these terms, and slid off on the near side, though not till he had stolen a cursory kiss.
- 1913 January–May, Edgar Rice Burroughs, “The Gods of Mars”, in The All-Story, New York, N.Y.: Frank A. Munsey Co., →OCLC; republished as The Gods of Mars, Chicago, Ill.: A[lexander] C[aldwell] McClurg & Co., 1918 September, →OCLC:
  I may say that that single cursory examination of this awful travesty on Nature would have proved quite sufficient to my desires had I been a free agent.
Careless or desultory.
The cursory inspection missed several irregularities.
(obsolete) Running about; not stationary.

hasty, superficial, careless