Cursory means done quickly and without care. A glance rather than a look.
The word carries criticism in it, since calling an inspection cursory says it should have been thorough. It attaches most often to glance, inspection, examination and reading. The root is Latin currere, to run, which also gives English current and courier, and the picture is of somebody running past rather than stopping. The adverb cursorily is awkward enough that most writers rearrange the sentence to avoid it.
1adjectivecursoryHasty and without attention to detail.
“A cursory search turned up nothing.”
2adjectivebriefBrief and superficial.
“He gave the letter only a cursory glance.”
Too few real examples of this word to estimate which sense is commonest.
Proto-Indo-European
*ḱers-
Latin
cursorius — hasty, of a race or running
Middle French
cursoire — rapid
English, today
cursory
Borrowed from Middle French cursoire (“rapid”), from Latin cursorius (“hasty, of a race or running”).
Etymology from Wiktionary, CC BY-SA