Fitful

Definitions: Fitful

Fitful

Adjective

1. Occurring in spells and often abruptly; "fitful bursts of energy"; "spasmodic rifle fire".

2. Intermittently stopping and starting; "fitful (or interrupted) sleep"; "off-and-on static".

Date "fitful" was first used in popular English literature: sometime before 1321. (references)

Synonyms: Fitful

Synonyms: interrupted (adj), off-and-on(a) (adj), spasmodic (adj). (additional references)

Context	Synonyms within Context (source: adapted from Roget's Thesaurus).
Caprice	Adjective: capricious; erratic, eccentric, fitful, hysterical; full of whims; Noun: maggoty; inconsistent, fanciful, fantastic, whimsical, crotchety, kinky, particular, humorsome, freakish, skittish, wanton, wayward; contrary; captious; arbitrary; unconformable; penny wise and pound foolish; fickle; (irresolute); frivolous, sleeveless, giddy, volatile.
Changeableness	Unstaid, inconstant; unsteady, unstable, unfixed, unsettled; fluctuating; Verb: restless; agitated; erratic, fickle; irresolute; capricious; touch and go; inconsonant, fitful, spasmodic; vibratory; vagrant, wayward; desultory; afloat; alternating; alterable, plastic, mobile; transient; wavering.
Discontinuity	Adjective: discontinuous, unsuccessive, broken, interrupted, dicousu; disconnected, unconnected; discrete, disjunctive; fitful; (irregular); spasmodic, desultory; intermitting, occasional; Verb:, intermittent; alternate; recurrent; (periodic).
Irregularity of recurrence	Dj. irregular, uncertain, unpunctual, capricious, desultory, fitful, flickering; rambling, rhapsodical; spasmodic; immethodical, unmethodical, variable.
Source: adapted from Roget's Thesaurus.

Crosswords: Fitful

English words defined with "fitful": Dogsleep, doze, drowse ♦ fitfully ♦ shimmer ♦ To flash in the pan. (references)

Specialty definitions using "fitful": Norna of the Fitful Head. (references)

Domain	Title
Books	Fitful Peace: Human Rights and Reconciliation in Nicaragua Under the Chamorro Government (An Americas Watch Report) (reference) The fitful republic : economy, society, and politics in Argentina (reference) The United Arab Emirates through the 1990s : fitful recovery ahead (reference) (more book examples)
Source: compiled by the editor from various references; see credits.

Thumbnail	Description & Credit
	The Hubble telescope has provided a detailed look at the fitful, eruptive, and dynamic ...Credit: NASA.
Source: compiled by the editor from various references; see credits.

Title	Author	Quote
Grapes of Wrath	Steinbeck, John	In front of one tent a low fitful fire burned and a woman watched a kettle that cooked early breakfast.
Source: compiled by the editor from various references.

"Fitful" is generally used as an adjective (general or positive) -- approximately 98.65% of the time. "Fitful" is used about 74 times out of a sample of 100 million words spoken or written in English. Its rank is based on over 700,000 words used in the English language. Some parts-of-speech are not covered due to the samples used by the British National Corpus. (note: percents less than one-hundredth of one percent have been omitted)

Parts of Speech	Percent	Usage per 100 Million Words	Rank in English
Adjective (general or positive)	98.65%	73	39,105
Noun (proper)	1.35%	1	339,140
Total	100.00%	74	N/A

The following statistics estimate the number of searches per day across the major English-language search engines as identified by various trade publications. Hyperlinks lead to commercial use of the expression at Amazon.com.

Language		Translations for "fitful"; alternative meanings/domain in parentheses.
Albanian		me hope (by fits and starts, fitfully, patchy), i çrregullt (anomalous, disorderly, erratic, formless, irregular, messy, tumultuary, unkempt, untidy). (various references)

Arabic		‏متقطع (broken, casual, choppy, cut off, disconnected, discontinuous, fretful, intermission, intermittent, interrupted, irregular, occasional, remittent, spasmodic, sporadic, torn apart, uneven), ‏تناوبي (recurring), ‏تشنجي (convulsive, spasmodic, spastic). (various references)

Bulgarian		който става с прекъсвания, колеблив (backward, doubtful, dubious, faltering, halting, hesitant, hesitating, infirm, irresolute, labile, pendulous, queasy, rickety, rocky, tardy, tentative, vacillating, versatile, wavering, wobbly, yo-yo), променлив (baffling, changeable, choppy, erratic, fluctuating, fluent, inconsistent, inconstant, liquid, mobile, protean, shifting, undecided, unsettled, unstable, unsteady, variable, variant, varied, versatile, volatile). (various references)

Chinese		一阵阵. (various references)

Czech		přerývaný, nepokojný (restless, troubled, uneasy), neklidný (bumpy, choppy, disturbed, restive, restless, unearthly, uneasy, unresting), nárazový (gusty), křeèovitý (convulsive, forced, spasmodic, spastic). (various references)

Dutch		onberekenbaar (capricious), nukkig (capricious), grillig (capricious, fantastic, grotesque, of fantasy). (various references)

Esperanto		kaprica (capricious). (various references)

Faeroese		ríggjutur (capricious), lúnutur (capricious). (various references)

Finnish		puuskittainen (gusty, paroxysmal). (various references)

French		troublé, intermittent. (various references)

German		unbeständig (changeable, erratic, fickle, flighty, impermanent, inconsistent, inconsistently, inconstant, inconstantly, labile, Moody, transitory, uncertain, unsettled, unstable, unsteady, variable, volatile). (various references)

Greek		σπασμωδικόσ (convulsive, jerky, jumpy, spasmodic, spastic). (various references)

Hebrew		לסרו�'ין (alternately, by fits and starts, every other, in instalments, intermittently, off and on, on and off), לא ס�"יר (irregular, sporadic), �"פכפך (fickle, inconstant, spineless, temperamental, turncoat, unsettled, wayward). (various references)

Hungarian		görcsös (convulsive, cramp, spasmodic, spastic). (various references)

Italian		irregolare (anomalous, erratic, foul, irregular, patchy, ragged, rambling, uneven). (various references)

Japanese Kanji		発作的 (spasmodic). (various references)

Japanese Katakana		ほっさてき (spasmodic). (various references)

Manx		teaymagh (capricious, fickle, freakish, humoursome, moody, notional, spasmodic, wavering, whimsical). (various references)

Pig Latin		itfulfay

Portuguese		irregular (atypical, bumpy, catchy, crenelated, disorderly, erratic, inequable, informal, inordinate, irregular, irregular heartbeat, jagged, jaggy, jerky, joggly, jolty, knockabout, laceration, lawless, occasionalism, ragged, rough, rugged, scratchy, snatchy, spotty, unequable, unequal, uneven, wayward), indeciso (blear, double-minded, doubtfully, drawn, feckless, half hearted, halve, indecisive, index, irresolution, laconic, pendant, pending, shilly shally, suspended, undecided, undetermined, unresolved, unsettled, unsolved, unsteady, up in the air, vacillating, vague, wavering), incerto (borderline, chancy, double-minded, doubtful, doubtless, Dublin, floating bridge, hazardous cargo, incalculable, inconstant, insecure, Kittle, lubricous, precarious, problematic, questionable, risky, shaky, shifting, slippery, slippy, tottery, touch and go, unassured, uncertain, undecided, unreliable, unsettled, unstable, unsure), espasmódico (clonic, convulsive, cramped, spasmodic, spastic), doninha (found, weasel), caprichoso (arbitrary, cantankerous, caprice, capricious, crotchety, difficult, extravagant, faddy, fanciful, freakish, Kittle, maggoty, notional, peevish, skittish, temperamental, tidy, viewy, wayward, whim, whimsical). (various references)

Romanian		nesigur (chancy, conjectural, doubtful, dubious, erratic, hesitating, in doubt, inconstant, indecisive, insecure, irresolutely, rocky, ticklish, uncertain, unsafe), neregulat (broken, disorderly, erratic, irregular, irregularly, odd, patchy, ragged, rugged, scraggy, snatchy, unequal, uneven), cu întreruperi (by fits and starts, off and on), convulsiv (convulsive, jerkily, jerky, spasmodic), capricios (arbitrary, capricious, cranky, crotchety, difficult, fanciful, fancy, fantastic, fantastical, fickle, fractious, freakish, frolic, Froward, humoursome, peevish, perverse, vagarious, wanton, wayward, whimsical, whimsy). (various references)

Russian		порывистый (brash, choppy, gusty, impetuous, jerky, squally). (various references)

Serbo-Croatian		grčevit (convulsive, jerky, spasmodic). (various references)

Spanish		irregular (aberrant, abnormal, all-aged, irregular, twitty, uneven, uneven-aged), espasmódico (jerky, spasmodic). (various references)

Swedish		ryckig (disjointed, jerky, jumpy, spasmodic). (various references)

Thai		ไม่ต่อเนื่อง. (various references)

Turkish		değişken (capricious, changeable, changeful, choppy, erratic, factor, fickle, flexible, flexile, fluid, fluxional, incalculable, inconsistent, inconstant, inequable, labile, mercurial, mobile, mutable, protean, shifting, sliding, streaked, streaky, swinging, uncertain, unfunded, unstable, unsteady, variable, variant, versatile), düzensiz (chaotic, desultory, disordered, disorderly, disorganized, erratic, excursive, freehand, haywire, hugger mugger, huggermugger, indigested, inordinate, irregular, jerky, nonuniform, non-uniform, out of order, out of square, out of trim, out-of-balance, patchily, patchy, ragged, rambling, snatchy, snuffy, unequal, unkempt, unsteady, untidy), aralıklı (discontinuous, episodic, intermittent, scattered, spaced-out, sparse, spasmodic, sporadic). (various references)

Ukranian		судорожний (paroxysmal, snatchy, spasmodic, spastic), уривчастий (curt, desultory, fragmentary, jerky, patchy, scrappy, snippy). (various references)

Vietnamese		từng cơn; từng đợt hay thay đổi. (various references)
Source: compiled by the editor from various translation references.

Derivations
	Words beginning with "fitful": fitfully, fitfulness, fitfulnesses. (additional references)
Misspellings
	"Fitful" is suggested in spellcheckers for the following: filful, fitfull, fitfuy, fitou, fitu, fuitgul, mittful, pitful. (additional references)
Source: compiled by the editor, based on several corpora (additional references).

# of Phoneme Matches	Pronunciation	Word(s) rhyming with "fitful" (pronounced fi"tful)
4	-t f u l	artful, boastful, deceitful, delightful, disrespectful, distasteful, distrustful, doubtful, eventful, fateful, fistful, forgetful, fretful, frightful, fruitful, grateful, hateful, hurtful, insightful, lustful, mistrustful, neglectful, regretful, resentful, respectful, restful, rightful, spiteful, tactful, tasteful, thoughtful, uneventful, ungrateful, wasteful, wistful, zestful.
3	-f u l	apocryphal, awful, baffle, baleful, bashful, beautiful, blissful, bountiful, careful, cheerful, colorful, disdainful, disgraceful, doleful, dreadful, duffel, dutiful, faithful, falafel, fanciful, fearful, flavorful, forceful, gainful, gleeful, graceful, harmful, healthful, helpful, hopeful, houseful, joyful, kerfuffle, lawful, masterful, meaningful, merciful, mindful, mournful, muffle, needful, painful, panful, peaceful, pitiful, playful, plentiful, powerful, prayerful, purposeful, raffle, remorseful, reshuffle, resourceful, riffle, rifle, rueful, ruffle, scornful, scuffle, shameful, shuffle, sinful, skillful, sorrowful, soulful, stifle, stressful, successful, suspenseful, tearful, thankful, trifle, triumphal, truffle, truthful, tuneful, unfaithful, unhealthful, unhelpful, unlawful, unsuccessful, untruthful, useful, vengeful, waffle, watchful, willful, wishful, woeful, wonderful, worshipful, wrongful, youthful.
Source: compiled by the editor (additional references); see credits.

Scrabble® Enable2K-Verified Anagrams
	Words within the letters "f-f-i-l-t-u"
	-2 letters: flit, lift, litu, luff, tiff, tuff.
	-3 letters: fil, fit, flu, iff, lit, til, tui.
	-4 letters: if, it, li, ti, ut.
	Words containing the letters "f-f-i-l-t-u"
	+1 letter: fistful.
	+2 letters: faithful, fistfuls, fitfully, fruitful, stuffily.
	+3 letters: difficult, faithfuls, fluffiest, frightful, ruffliest.
	+4 letters: difficulty, faithfully, fitfulness, fruitfully, insufflate, snuffliest, sufflating, unfaithful, unfruitful.
	+5 letters: bullmastiff, conflictful, difficultly, faultfinder, frightfully, fruitfuller, fulfillment, ineffectual, insufflated, insufflates, insufflator, outbluffing.
Source: compiled by the editor from various references; see credits. SCRABBLE® is a registered trademark. All intellectual property rights in and to the game are owned in the U.S.A and Canada by Hasbro Inc., and throughout the rest of the world by J.W. Spear & Sons Limited of Maidenhead, Berkshire, England, a subsidiary of Mattel Inc. Mattel and Spear are not affiliated with Hasbro.