fitful

• POS: Adjective
• HYPHEN: fit=ful

CIDE DICTIONARY

fitful, a. [From 7th Fit.].

 Full of fits; irregularly variable; impulsive and unstable.  [1913 Webster]
"After life's fitful fever, he sleeps well."
"The victorious trumpet peal
Dies fitfully away."

OXFORD DICTIONARY

fitful, adj. active or occurring spasmodically or intermittently.

Derivative

fitfully adv. fitfulness n.

THESAURUS

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

ROGET THESAURUS

fitful

Caprice

N caprice, fancy, humor, whim, whimsy, whimsey, whimwham, crotchet, capriccio, quirk, freak, maggot, fad, vagary, prank, fit, flimflam, escapade, boutade, wild-goose chase, capriciousness, kink, capricious, erratic, eccentric, fitful, hysterical, full of whims, maggoty, inconsistent, fanciful, fantastic, whimsical, crotchety, kinky, particular, humorsome, freakish, skittish, wanton, wayward, contrary, captious, arbitrary, unconformable, penny wise and pound foolish, fickle, frivolous, sleeveless, giddy, volatile, by fits and starts, without rhyme or reason, nil fuit unquain sic inipar sibi, the deuce is in him.

Discontinuity

N discontinuity, disjunction, anacoluthon, interruption, break, fracture, flaw, fault, crack, cut, gap, solution of continuity, caesura, broken thread, parenthesis, episode, rhapsody, patchwork, intermission, alternation, dropping fire, discontinuous, unsuccessive, broken, interrupted, dicousu, disconnected, unconnected, discrete, disjunctive, fitful, spasmodic, desultory, intermitting, occasional, intermittent, alternate, recurrent, at intervals, by snatches, by jerks, by skips, by catches, by fits and starts, skippingly, per saltum, longo intervallo, like 'angel visits few and far between'.

Irregularity of recurrence

N irregularity of recurrence, irregularity, uncertainty, unpunctuality, fitfulness, capriciousness, ecrhythmus, irregular, uncertain, unpunctual, capricious, desultory, fitful, flickering, rambling, rhapsodical, spasmodic, immethodical, unmethodical, variable, irregularly, by fits and starts.

Changeableness

N changeableness, mutability, inconstancy, versatility, mobility, instability, unstable equilibrium, vacillation, fluctuation, vicissitude, alternation, restlessness, fidgets, disquiet, disquietude, inquietude, unrest, agitation, moon, Proteus, chameleon, quicksilver, shifting sands, weathercock, harlequin, Cynthia of the minute, April showers, wheel of Fortune, transientness, changeable, changeful, changing, mutable, variable, checkered, ever changing, protean, proteiform, versatile, unstaid, inconstant, unsteady, unstable, unfixed, unsettled, fluctuating, restless, agitated, erratic, fickle, irresolute, capricious, touch and go, inconsonant, fitful, spasmodic, vibratory, vagrant, wayward, desultory, afloat, alternating, alterable, plastic, mobile, transient, wavering, seesaw, off and on, a rolling stone gathers no moss, pictra mossa non fa muschis, honores mutant mores, varium et mutabile semper femina.