From The Collaborative International Dictionary of English v.0.44 [gcide]:
Fitful \Fit"ful\, adjective [From 7th {Fit}.] Full of fits; irregularly variable; impulsive and unstable.
After life's fitful fever, he sleeps well. --Shak. -- {Fit"ful*ly}, adverb -- {Fit"ful*ness}, noun
The victorious trumpet peal Dies fitfully away. --Macaulay.
From WordNet (r) 2.0 [wn]:
adjective
1: occurring in spells and often abruptly; "fitful bursts of energy"; "spasmodic rifle fire" [syn: {spasmodic}]
2: intermittently stopping and starting; "fitful (or interrupted) sleep"; "off-and-on static" [syn: {interrupted}, {off-and-on(a)}]
From Moby Thesaurus II by Grady Ward, 1.0 [moby-thes]:
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
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