intermittent

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English

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Etymology

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From Middle French intermittent, from Latin intermittens (“sending between”), from prefix inter- (“among, on”) mittens (“sending”), from mittere (“to send”).

Pronunciation

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  • (UK) IPA(key): /ˌɪntəˈmɪtn̩t/
  • (US) IPA(key): /ˌɪntɚˈmɪtn̩t/
  • Audio (US):(file)

Adjective

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intermittent (comparative more intermittent, superlative most intermittent)

  1. Stopping and starting, occurring, or presenting at intervals; coming after a particular time span.
    Synonyms: periodic, periodical, patchy, spasmodic; see also Thesaurus:discontinuous
    Antonyms: steady, constant, continual
    The day was cloudy with intermittent rain.
    Intermittent bugs are most difficult to reproduce.
    • 1564, Philip Moore, chapter 13, in The Hope of Health‎[1], London:
      Also bloudletting is good in feuers, whether they be continual or intermittent […]
    • 1698, Robert South, Twelve Sermons upon Several Subjects and Occasions‎[2], volume 3, London: Thomas Bennet, page 511:
      […] the Gift of Prophecy […] was in the mind not as an Inhabitant, but as a Guest; that is, by intermittent Returns and Ecstasies, by Occasional Raptures and Revelations; as is clear from what we read of the Prophets in the Old Testament.
    • 1792, Richard Cumberland, Calvary: or The Death of Christ‎[3], London: C. Dilly, Book 5, lines 364-366, p. 164:
      […] Pale through night’s curtain gleam’d
      By fits the lunar intermittent ray,
      That quiv’ring serv’d to light his lonely steps
    • 1926, Hope Mirrlees, chapter 20, in Lud-in-the-Mist, London: Millennium, published 2000, page 193:
      […] by degrees the talk became as flickering and intermittent as the light of the dying fire, which they were too idle to feed with sticks […]
    • 2015, John Irving, chapter 18, in Avenue of Mysteries‎[4], New York: Simon and Schuster, page 238:
      […] three scruffy-looking young men with intermittent facial hair and starvation-symptom physiques.
  2. (specifically, geology, of a body of water) Existing only for certain seasons; that is, being dry for part of the year.
    The area has many intermittent lakes and streams.

Derived terms

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Translations

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Noun

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intermittent (plural intermittents)

  1. (medicine, dated) An intermittent fever or disease.
    • 1592, Nicholas Gyer, chapter 16, in The English Phlebotomy: or, Method and Way of Healing by Letting of Blood‎[5], London: Andrew Mansell, page 172:
      Feuers, and especially those that are called intermittents, discontinuing agues, euen naturally at the beginning and their first inuasion, cause vomits: and at the declining, sweats.
    • 1733, John Arbuthnot, chapter 6, in An Essay concerning the Effects of Air on Human Bodies‎[6], London: J. Tonson, page 144:
      The Bark, which had been ineffectual in the Intermittents of the former Year, was successful in this.
    • 1832, Robley Dunglison, “Circulation”, in Human Physiology‎[7], volume 2, Philadelphia: Carey & Lea, page 146:
      In disease, the agency of this system of vessels is an object of attentive study with the pathologist. To its influence in inflammation, we have already alluded; but it is no less exemplified in the more general diseases of the frame, as in the cold, hot, and sweating stages of an intermittent.

French

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Etymology

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From Latin intermittentem.

Pronunciation

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Adjective

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intermittent (feminine intermittente, masculine plural intermittents, feminine plural intermittentes)

  1. Intermittent

Derived terms

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Further reading

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Latin

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Verb

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intermittent

  1. third-person plural future active indicative of intermittō
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