token gesture
Hollow symbolic act
A token gesture is an action performed more for appearance than genuine effect—a symbolic effort that falls short of meaningful commitment.
Someone might make a token gesture of support without actually helping: The company's donation was a token gesture that did nothing to address the problem.
The phrase often carries criticism, implying the gesture is inadequate or insincere.
- hollowEmpty within
- symbolicRepresenting through signs
- perfunctoryDone with minimal effort
- emptyHolding nothing inside
- insincereFeigning belief or feeling
lip service · mere formality · meaningless · superficial · halfhearted · nominal · cursory · bare minimum · obligatory · pretense · show · for show · facade · going through the motions · going through motions · appeasement · formality · dismissive
- Office Bureaucracypaperwork, filing, approval, sign-off, compliance
- shoddinessslipshod, slapdash, hack job, botch job, botch
- diminished importancedemotion, downgrade, deprecation, marginalization, trivialization
- weak responsesshrug, mumble, stammer, hesitation, evasion
token gesturesystemic change
Transformation affecting whole institutions
token, gesture, tokens, tokenism, gestures, gestured, gesturing, gestural