fitful
Hello, you have come here looking for the meaning of the word fitful. In DICTIOUS you will not only get to know all the dictionary meanings for the word fitful, but we will also tell you about its etymology, its characteristics and you will know how to say fitful in singular and plural. Everything you need to know about the word fitful you have here. The definition of the word fitful will help you to be more precise and correct when speaking or writing your texts. Knowing the definition offitful, as well as those of other words, enriches your vocabulary and provides you with more and better linguistic resources.
English
Etymology
From fit (“convulsion, seizure; sudden burst of activity”) + -ful (suffix forming adjectives from nouns, with the sense of being full of, tending to, or thoroughly possessing the quality expressed by the noun).
Pronunciation
- (Received Pronunciation) IPA(key): /ˈfɪtf(ʊ)l/
- (General American) IPA(key): /ˈfɪtf(ə)l/
Audio (GA) (file) - Hyphenation: fit‧ful
Adjective
fitful (comparative more fitful, superlative most fitful)
- (obsolete) Characterized by fits (convulsions or seizures).
- c. 1606 (date written), William Shakespeare, “The Tragedie of Macbeth”, in Mr. William Shakespeares Comedies, Histories, & Tragedies (First Folio), London: Isaac Iaggard, and Ed Blount, published 1623, →OCLC, , page 140, column 2:
- Duncane is in his Graue: / After Lifes fitfull Feuer, he ſleepes well, / Treaſon ha's done his worſt: not Steele, not Poyſon, / Mallice domeſtique, forraine Leuie, nothing, / Can touch him further.
- (by extension) Characterized by sudden bursts of activity with periods of inactivity in between; intermittent, irregular, unsteady.
- Synonyms: capricious, changeable, changing, erratic, shifting, spasmodic; see also Thesaurus:discontinuous
- Antonyms: unfitful; see also Thesaurus:continuous
- His breathing was fitful.
- Troubled by her unfinished work, she fell into a fitful sleep.
- 1810, Walter Scott, “Canto I. The Chase.”, in The Lady of the Lake; , Edinburgh: [James Ballantyne and Co.] for John Ballantyne and Co.; London: Longman, Hurst, Rees, and Orme, and William Miller, →OCLC, stanza I, page 3:
- Harp of the North! that mouldering long hast hung / On the witch-elm that shades Saint Fillan's spring, / And down the fitful breeze thy numbers flung, / Till envious ivy did around thee cling, / Muffling with verdant ringlet every string,— […]
- 1816 February 13, [Lord Byron], “The Siege of Corinth”, in The Siege of Corinth. A Poem. Parisina. A Poem, London: [T Davison] for John Murray, , →OCLC, stanza XXI, page 33, lines 575–578:
- Like the figures on arras, that gloomily glare / Stirred by the breath of the wintry air, / So seen by the dying lamp's fitful light, / Lifeless, but life-like, and awful to sight; […]
- 1851 November 14, Herman Melville, “The Musket”, in Moby-Dick; or, The Whale, 1st American edition, New York, N.Y.: Harper & Brothers; London: Richard Bentley, →OCLC, page 567:
- The cabin lamp—taking long swings this way and that— was burning fitfully, and casting fitful shadows upon the old man’s bolted door,—a thin one, with fixed blinds inserted, in place of upper panels.
- 2012 October 27, “The economy: Don’t say ‘green shoots’: Britain emerges from its second recession in four years”, in The Economist, London: Economist Group, →ISSN, →OCLC, archived from the original on 29 October 2012:
- So fitful has Britain’s economy been that any good news is understandably snatched at.
Derived terms
Related terms
Translations
characterized by sudden bursts of activity with periods of inactivity in between — see also intermittent, irregular
|
References
- ^ “fitful, adj.”, in OED Online
, Oxford, Oxfordshire: Oxford University Press, September 2021; “fitful, adj.”, in Lexico, Dictionary.com; Oxford University Press, 2019–2022.
