fitfully

comparative more fitfully · superlative most fitfully

1. In a fitful manner; irregularly or unsteadily.

   He slept fitfully, plagued by bad dreams and a persistent cough.

   4 more examples

   The cabin lamp—taking long swings this way and that— was burning fitfully, and casting fitful shadows upon the old man’s bolted door […]

   1851 November 14, Herman Melville, chapter 123, in Moby-Dick; or, The Whale, 1st American edition, New York, N.Y.: Harper & Brothers; London: Richard Bentley, →OCLC

   The train for Marmion left Boston at four o'clock in the afternoon, and rambled fitfully toward the southern cape, while the shadows grew long in the stony pastures […]

   1885–1886, Henry James, chapter XXXV, in The Bostonians […], London; New York, N.Y.: Macmillan and Co., published 16 February 1886, →OCLC

   We shivered miserably throughout the night. Now and again fitfully slept, but the pain of the cold always aroused me.

   1904, Jack London, chapter 36, in The Sea-Wolf (Macmillan’s Standard Library), New York, N.Y.: Grosset & Dunlap, →OCLC

   She brought them all into a lab to sleep overnight while sensors measured their brain waves, muscle activity, and eye movements. But when she reviewed the results, she was dismayed to find they were the opposite of what she had predicted. The participants in the meditation group slept more fitfully, with more frequent awakenings, than those who didn’t meditate.

   2026 September 4, Olga Khazan, “The Dark Side of Mindfulness”, in The Atlantic, retrieved 19 Sep 2026

   Synonyms: in fits and starts, discontinuously, in fits and starts, intermittently, patchily, spasmodically, sporadically