cursory

Etymology

Most dictionaries take it as borrowed from Late Latin cursōrius (“of running, of a race”),^{[2][3][4][5][6][7][8]} from cursor (“runner”),^{[2][3][5][6][9]} from the past participle of currō (“to run”),^[10][7][11] which Etymonline traces to Proto-Indo-European *kers- (“to run”).^[12] The Latin adjective had also passed into Old French corsoire, cursoire,^[2] and Barnhart thinks English probably borrowed it from Middle French cursoire (“rapid”), said of boats, winds and rumours;^[10] Etymonline also gives the French word as the source.^[12]

Earliest recorded meaning

Passing quickly over a thing or subject without noting details; hasty, hurried: 1601, in Arthur Dent's The Plaine Mans Path-way to Heauen.^{[2][4][13][10]} Etymonline dates it to about 1600.^[12]

Semantic evolution

The figurative sense of hasty, superficial attention came first and has stayed the main one.^[2][12] The literal sense, running or moving about and travelling, was used only briefly in the early 17th century (1606–50).^[2][12] Hoad and Onions date the adverb cursorily to the 16th century, before the adjective.^[6][14] Johnson (1755) defined cursory as hasty, quick, inattentive and careless, quoting Addison's "a cursory and superficial view".^[15] Historians of the medieval universities use the term from 1841 for cursory lectures, the less formal lectures given by bachelors besides the ordinary ones,^[2] and in entomology it describes legs adapted for running.^[2]

Timeline

• 1601 – hasty and superficial; passing quickly over details.^[2][4][10]
• 1606 – moving about, travelling (obsolete by 1650).^[2]
• 1841 – of a lecture in a medieval university, less formal than the ordinary lectures.^[2]

Meanings

Adjective

1. Done quickly and without attention to detail; hasty and superficial: She gave the report a cursory glance before signing it.^{[16][4][13][2]}

Word family

• cursorily
• cursoriness

Related words

• cursor
• course
• current
• cursive
• courier

References

1. ^ a b Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l Oxford English Dictionary Online (accessed March 2026), Oxford: Oxford University Press
3. ^ a b The American Heritage Dictionary of the English Language (online 2024), 5th ed., Boston: Houghton Mifflin Harcourt
4. ^ a b c d Merriam-Webster Unabridged Dictionary (2024), online ed., Springfield, Mass.: Merriam-Webster
5. ^ a b Shorter Oxford English Dictionary on Historical Principles (2002), 5th ed., ed. William R. Trumble and Angus Stevenson, Oxford: Oxford University Press
6. ^ a b c Hoad, T. F., ed. (1986), The Concise Oxford Dictionary of English Etymology, Oxford: Clarendon Press
7. ^ a b Klein, Ernest. A Comprehensive Etymological Dictionary of the English Language. 2 vols. Amsterdam: Elsevier, 1966–1967.
8. ^ Dictionary.com Unabridged (2016), based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, New York: Random House
9. ^ Stevenson, Angus, ed. (2010), Oxford Dictionary of English, 3rd ed., Oxford: Oxford University Press
10. ^ a b c d Barnhart, Robert K. (1988), The Barnhart Dictionary of Etymology
11. ^ Skeat, Walter W. (1911), A Concise Etymological Dictionary of the English Language, new ed., Oxford: Clarendon Press
12. ^ a b c d e Harper, Douglas. Online Etymology Dictionary, https://www.etymonline.com
13. ^ a b Merriam-Webster's Collegiate Dictionary (2003), 11th ed., Springfield, Mass.: Merriam-Webster
14. ^ Onions, C. T., ed. (1966), The Oxford Dictionary of English Etymology, Oxford: Clarendon Press
15. ^ Johnson, Samuel (1755), A Dictionary of the English Language, London; 4th ed. 1773; Johnson's Dictionary Online, ed. Beth Rapp Young et al.
16. ^ Collins English Dictionary (2023), Glasgow: HarperCollins