Could its population be fed every day in anything more than the most perfunctory way?

He had entered after a most perfunctory knock and without waiting for a reply.

Previously, he said, only the most perfunctory telephone checks were made.

Yet only the most perfunctory of investigations was performed.

He had written to her regularly over the years, at first with only the most perfunctory response, if any.

Also that he was given only the most perfunctory examination at the jail.

"Finally," he said, giving her hand only the most perfunctory of squeezes.

With such a load workers cannot visit children frequently and have only time for the most perfunctory visits.

His actions, in all that related to his family, were of the most perfunctory kind.

This was the first time Richard had shown more than the most perfunctory co-operation in his therapy.