on-again, off-again

alternative on-again-off-again · alternative on-again off-again · alternative on again, off again · alternative on again off again

1. not comparableIntermittent; frequent but irregular.

   On the ninth day of filming Netflix’s “Mind Your Manners,” the show’s host, the Shanghai etiquette teacher Sara Jane Ho, dumped her on-again-off-again boyfriend of four years in a text message.

   2023 January 2, Maureen O’Connor, “The Etiquette Guru Who Broke Up With a Boyfriend Over Text”, in The New York Times, →ISSN

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   But the screenplay, from Supernatural creator Eric Kripke, diverts too often to inert scenes of Lewis’ struggles at school, and a subplot about his on-again, off-again friendship with bully Tarby Corrigan (Sunny Suljic) feels like a distraction from the magical business at hand.

   2018 September 19, Katie Rife, “Eli Roth, of all directors, brings Amblin magic to the kid-lit horror of The House With A Clock In Its Walls”, in The Onion AV Club, archived from the original on 20 Sep 2018

   Synonyms: on-off