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go through the motions

   Also found in: Dictionary/thesaurus, Legal 0.04 sec.
go through the motions
Fig. to make a feeble effort to do something; to do something insincerely or in cursory fashion. Jane isn't doing her best. She's just going through the motions. Bill was supposed to be raking the yard, but he was just going through the motions.
See also: motion, through

go through the motions
to do something because you are expected to do it and not because you want to (often in continuous tenses) These days when we go out, cook a meal together or even make love, I get the feeling that he's just going through the motions.
See also: motion, through

go through the motions
to do something without believing it is important After his wife died, he went through the motions of living, without feeling much of anything.
See also: motion, through


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The place where God reveals our brokenness seems obvious--we go through the motions of a religious life in a culture that many experience as unjust, we are not faithful, and we are not prepared (despite, I suspect, some of you having been Boy Scouts).
This feeling has sometimes been compared to an out-of-body experience: the limbs and muscles go through the motions they have learned, but the mind and spirit seem to be elsewhere.
To watch Aloysius and Flynn go through the motions of courtesy (while knowing what's boiling under the surface) is to experience an inspired moment of dramatic irony.
 
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