spasmodicness

The sudden changes in temperature is equal to the spasmodicness of the Spiritual thermometer.

1936 February 27, Jack Houts, “[Rosston Dept.] Methodist Church: Sermon Squibs”, in The Harper County Journal, volume XXXII, number 4, Buffalo, Okla., page two, column 1

Let me tell you two stories, the first illustrating the spasmodicness of most Christians—marking their immaturity—and the second showing how a child of God may attain unto great things.

1947 May, William Ward Ayer, “The Marks of a Mature Christian”, in Marked Men: A Study of the Well-Defined Characteristics of Biblical Men Who Manifested Those Vices or Virtues Which Are Still Blighting or Blessing the Religious World, Grand Rapids, Mich.: W[illia]m B. Eerdmans Publishing Company, page 91

The other elements of the atonal style are the disjunctness of the melodic line which progresses by leaps and bounds, a sometimes almost self-conscious experimentation with a certain spasmodicness of rhythmic phrase, and a mixture of imagination and logic in the omission of the "unessentials" of form.

1949, Patricia Ann Rapp, Contemporary American Piano Music, Madison, Wis.: University of Wisconsin, →OCLC, pages 13–14

Naturally the instability and spasmodicness of building under these conditions cannot be said to be favourable for the development of rationalisation.

1959, Bulletin of the International Federation of Building and Woodworkers, volume 10, page 245

They give no evidence of issuing from an interior of coherent step-by-step attention to and progressive general evaluation of the subject, proof of intensive study of which they are supposed to provide. Spasmodicness of concern with the subject itself, in its particulars or its total effect, is a common feature of feministic literary criticism and literary consciousness.

2000, Chelsea, volumes 68–69, page 99