fitful

fitful
    adj 1: occurring in spells and often abruptly; "fitful bursts of
           energy"; "spasmodic rifle fire" [syn: {fitful},
           {spasmodic}]
    2: intermittently stopping and starting; "fitful (or
       interrupted) sleep"; "off-and-on static" [syn: {fitful},
       {interrupted}, {off-and-on(a)}]
    

Fitful \Fit"ful\, a. [From 7th {Fit}.]
   Full of fits; irregularly variable; impulsive and unstable.
   [1913 Webster]

         After life's fitful fever, he sleeps well. --Shak.
   -- {Fit"ful*ly}, adv. -- {Fit"ful*ness}, n.
   [1913 Webster]

         The victorious trumpet peal
         Dies fitfully away.                      --Macaulay.
   Fithel
    

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