[syn: fitful, interrupted, off-and-on(a)]
The Collaborative International Dictionary of English v.0.48:
Fitful \Fit"ful\, a. [From 7th Fit.]
Full of fits; irregularly variable; impulsive and unstable.
[1913 Webster]
After life's fitful fever, he sleeps well. --Shak.
-- Fit"ful*ly, adv. -- Fit"ful*ness, n.
[1913 Webster]
The victorious trumpet peal
Dies fitfully away. --Macaulay.
Fithel
WordNet (r) 3.0 (2006):
fitful
adj 1: occurring in spells and often abruptly; "fitful bursts of
energy"; "spasmodic rifle fire" [syn: fitful,
spasmodic]
2: intermittently stopping and starting; "fitful (or
interrupted) sleep"; "off-and-on static" [syn: fitful,
interrupted, off-and-on(a)]
Moby Thesaurus II by Grady Ward, 1.0:
189 Moby Thesaurus words for "fitful":
adrift, afloat, aimless, alternating, amorphous, broken,
broken off, capricious, careening, casual, catchy, changeable,
changeful, chopped-off, choppy, convulsive, correctly, decently,
decorously, decousu, desultory, deviable, deviative,
disarticulated, disconnected, discontinued, discontinuous,
discrete, disjunct, disjunctive, disordered, dispersed,
disproportionate, dizzy, eccentric, eclamptic, episodic, erratic,
fast and loose, fickle, fidgety, fitly, fittingly, flickering,
flighty, flitting, fluctuating, formless, freakish, frivolous,
giddy, gratuitous, guttering, halting, haphazard, herky-jerky,
heteroclite, hit-or-miss, immethodical, impetuous, impulsive,
inchoate, incoherent, inconsistent, inconstant, indecisive,
indiscriminate, infirm, intermittent, intermitting, interrupted,
irregular, irresolute, irresponsible, jagged, jerking, jerky,
jiggety, jumpy, justly, lurching, mazy, meaningless, mercurial,
misshapen, moody, nicely, noncontinuous, nonlinear, nonsequential,
nonserial, nonsymmetrical, nonsystematic, nonuniform, occasional,
on-again-off-again, orderless, orgasmic, parenthetic, patchy,
periodic, planless, promiscuous, properly, rambling, random,
recurrent, restless, rightly, rough, roving, saltatory,
scatterbrained, scrappy, senseless, shapeless, shifting, shifty,
shuffling, snatchy, spasmatic, spasmic, spasmodic, spastic,
spineless, sporadic, spotty, staggering, straggling, straggly,
suspended, systemless, twitchety, twitching, twitchy,
unaccountable, unarranged, uncertain, unclassified, unconnected,
uncontrolled, undependable, undirected, undisciplined, unequal,
uneven, unfixed, ungraded, unjoined, unmethodical, unmetrical,
unordered, unorganized, unpredictable, unregular, unreliable,
unrestrained, unrhythmical, unsettled, unsorted, unstable,
unstable as water, unstaid, unsteadfast, unsteady, unsuccessive,
unsymmetrical, unsystematic, ununiform, vacillating, vagrant,
vague, variable, varying, veering, vellicative, vicissitudinary,
vicissitudinous, volatile, wandering, wanton, wavering, wavery,
wavy, wayward, whimsical, wishy-washy, wobbling, wobbly