Copyright © Philip M. Parker, INSEAD. Terms of Use.

Definition: Sporadic |
SporadicAdjective1. Recurring in scattered and irregular or unpredictable instances; "a city subjected to sporadic bombing raids". Source: WordNet 1.7.1 Copyright © 2001 by Princeton University. All rights reserved. |
Date "sporadic" was first used: 1689. (references) |
Etymology: Sporadic \Spo*rad"ic\, adjective. [Greek expression scattered, from scattered, from to sow seed, to scatter like seed: compare to the French expression sporadique. See Spore.]. (Websters 1913) |
| Domain | Definition |
Health | Neither endemic nor epidemic; occurring occasionally in a random or isolated manner. (references) |
Medicine | Scattered; separate; occurring singly; not epidemic. Source: European Union. (references) |
Source: compiled by the editor from various references; see credits. | |
| Antonym: continual (adj). (additional references) |
| Context | Synonyms within Context (source: adapted from Roget's Thesaurus). |
Nonassemblage Dispersion | Adjective: unassembled; (see assemble; ); dispersed; Verb: sparse, dispread, broadcast, sporadic, widespread; epidemic; (general); adrift, stray; disheveled, streaming. |
| Source: adapted from Roget's Thesaurus. | |
Crosswords: Sporadic |
| English words defined with "sporadic": periodically ♦ spluttering, Sporadial, Sporadical, sporadically, sputtering ♦ Zymotic disease. (references) |
| Specialty definitions using "sporadic": airglow ♦ Creutzfeldt-Jacob Disease ♦ drug misuse ♦ earth-pillar, E-layer, E-region, erosion column, Es layer ♦ fairy chimney, Financial assistance from outside of the household, foEs ♦ Genes, APC ♦ hoodoo column ♦ Lophodermella needle casts ♦ Neurodegenerative Diseases ♦ rain pillar ♦ sand pinacle, Spinocerebellar Degenerations, sporadic E, sporadic E layer, sporadic E-layer, sporadic-E. (references) |
| Etymologies containing "sporadic": Sporades. (references) |
| Non-English Usage: "Sporadic" is also a word in the following language with English translations in parentheses. Romanian (sporadic, sporadically). |
| Domain | Title | ||
Books |
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Music |
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Source: compiled by the editor from various references; see credits. | |||
| Thumbnail | Description & Credit | Thumbnail | Description & Credit |
![]() | Chest radiograph of patient with sporadic case of Legionnaires' disease. Credit: CDC. | ![]() | Sporadic Cretinism. Credit: National Library of Medicine. |
Source: pictures compiled by the editor from various references; see picture credits. | |||
| Subject | Topic | Quote |
Health | Most cases of CVID, however, are sporadic. (references) | |
The two basic types of AD are familial and sporadic. (references) | ||
These cases are called sporadic and their cause is unknown. (references) | ||
Business | Terrorism is no longer a danger in major Peruvian cities, although terrorist groups continue to carry out sporadic activities in remote areas. (references) | |
Currently, there are no full-scale franchised health food stores in operation and most attempts to set up franchised stores by small local firms have been sporadic. (references) | ||
Children | Indonesia | Low-cost medical care is available, although access and availability sometimes are sporadic, especially in rural areas. (references) |
Antigua and Barbuda | Several alleged offenders reportedly were allowed to leave the country permanently, while prosecution generally appeared to be sporadic and half-hearted. (references) | |
Civil Liberties | Laos | The small Catholic community in Luang Prabang holds services in members' homes, but they are sporadic. (references) |
Economic History | Cape Verde | Trade fairs are sporadic but nevertheless a popular means of reaching the Cape Verdean buyer. (references) |
Kazakhstan | Nevertheless, systematic intellectual property violations persist and enforcement remains sporadic at best. (references) | |
Mexico | Since 1994 sporadic clashes have continued to occur between armed civilian groups, usually over disputed land claims. (references) | |
Human Rights | Vietnam | However, this practice appeared to be sporadic and is not applied consistently. (references) |
Bosnia and Herzegovina | Sporadic violence against international community representatives continued throughout the year. (references) | |
Saint Vincent and the Grenadines | The report also noted that police and guards conducted sporadic, infrequent, and inefficient searches of the prison. (references) | |
Minorities | Iran | These suspicions have led to sporadic outbreaks of fighting between government forces and Kurdish groups. (references) |
Haiti | Mulattos historically have been targets of sporadic attack in many cases because they are perceived to be wealthy. (references) | |
Nigeria | Unlike in the previous year, there were no reported sporadic incidents of attacks on individual religious leaders. (references) | |
Political Economy | Georgia | Ceasefires were in effect in both areas, although sporadic incidents of violence occurred in Abkhazia. (references) |
Afghanistan | Opposition forces continued sporadic rocket attacks against Kabul and bombarded civilians indiscriminately. (references) | |
East Timor | Despite such sporadic militia incursions, the security situation in most of East Timor was stable throughout the year. (references) | |
Political Rights | Togo | National election observer organizations did not participate, and international observation was sporadic. (references) |
Nepal | During the most recent national elections in 1999, there were sporadic incidents of violence that mainly occurred between supporters of rival political parties. (references) | |
Mozambique | The 6-week campaign period was marked by some sporadic violence attributable to both FRELIMO and RENAMO-UE supporters, although at significantly reduced levels compared to the 1994 elections. (references) | |
Trade | Norway | The stated reason for this is that many false "CE" labels appear on toys (in particular) exported from the PRC. An internal control will be required and Norwegian authorities will perform sporadic controls. (references) |
Travel | Costa Rica | Past demonstrations have resulted in port closures, roadblocks, and sporadic gasoline shortages. (references) |
Turkey | Although sporadic incidents involving terrorist groups continue to occur, the general security situation throughout Turkey is stable at this time. (references) | |
Women | Nauru | However, credible reports indicate that sporadic abuse, often aggravated by alcohol use, occurs. (references) |
Cambodia | Despite sporadic crackdowns on brothel operators in Phnom Penh, prostitution continued to flourish. (references) | |
Worker Rights | Philippines | The DOLE manages enforcement of workweek hours through sporadic inspections. (references) |
Source: compiled by the editor from ICON Group International, Inc.; see credits. | ||
| "Sporadic" is generally used as an adjective (general or positive) -- approximately 99.71% of the time. "Sporadic" is used about 347 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) | 99.71% | 346 | 15,378 |
| Noun (proper) | 0.29% | 1 | 339,140 |
| Total | 100.00% | 347 | N/A |
Source: compiled by the editor from several corpora; see credits.
Expressions using "sporadic": sporadic bovine encephalomyelitis ♦ sporadic cholera ♦ sporadic disease ♦ sporadic E ♦ sporadic E layer. Additional references. | |
| Hyphenated Usage | |
Beginning with "sporadic": sporadic-E. | |
| Source: compiled by the editor from various references; see credits. | |
| 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. |
| Expression | Frequency per Day |
sporadic | 26 |
e sporadic | 6 |
ataxia sporadic | 3 |
| Source: compiled by the editor from various references; see credits. | |
| Language | Translations for "sporadic"; alternative meanings/domain in parentheses. | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Albanian | sporadik, i vetëm (all, alone, lone, lonesome, one, only, single, Singleton, sole, solitary, solo, unaccompanied, unique, very), i rastësishëm (accidental, casual, chanceful, coincidental, desultory, fortuitous, incident, incidental, lucky, odd, random). (various references) | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Arabic | متفرق (divided, occasional, separate), متقطع (broken, casual, choppy, cut off, disconnected, discontinuous, fitful, fretful, intermission, intermittent, interrupted, irregular, occasional, remittent, spasmodic, torn apart, uneven), متشتت. (various references) | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Bulgarian | случаен (accidental, adventitious, adventive, arbitrary, by, casual, chance, facultative, fortuitous, haphazard, hit or miss, hit-and-miss, idle, incidental, long, lucky, occasional, odd, pickup, precarious, promiscuous, random, stray, unplanned, unsystematic), спорадичен, разпилян (scattered, scattering, straggling), непостоянен (astatic, capricious, casual, changeable, changeful, discontinuous, erratic, fickle, fluctuating, fluid, impermanent, inconstant, irregular, liquid, lubricous, mobile, mutable, non-persistent, seesaw, streaky, uncertain, unequable, uneven, unreliable, unstable, unsteady, vagarious, variable, variant, volatile, wayward, whimsical, yo-yo), единичен (individual, one track, particular, several, single, stray). (various references) | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Chinese | 零落 (scattered, withered and fallen), 分散 (Dispersed, Disperser, Distract, Distracted, Distracting, spitting, Sporadical). (various references) | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Czech | sporadický (spasmodic), ojedinìlý (solitary, stray, unique). (various references) | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Danish | sporadisk. (various references) | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Dutch | sporadisch, dungezaaid (airy). (various references) | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Esperanto | sporada. (various references) | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Faeroese | spjaddur. (various references) | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Farsi | پراکنده (Diffuse, Outspread, Sparse), گاه وبیگاه (Occasionally), تک وتوک , تک تک , انفرادی . (various references) | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Finnish | q-tyyppinen sporadinen E-kerros päivällä (q-type sporadic E during daytime). (various references) | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
French | sporadique. (various references) | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
German | sporadisch (fitful, fitfully, spasmodic, spasmodically, sporadically), zeitweilig (now and then, odd, temporarily, temporary), vereinzelt (isolated, isolates, occasional, scattered, stray), unregelmäßig (abnormal, anomalous, casual, erratic, fitful, irregular, irregularly, uneven, unsteady). (various references) | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Greek | σποραδικός (occasional). (various references) | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Hebrew | לא ס"יר (fitful, irregular). (various references) | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Hungarian | szórványos (diffuse, sparse, stray). (various references) | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Indonesian | jarang (infrequent, rare, scarce, seldom). (various references) | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Italian | sporadico (occasional). (various references) | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Japanese Kanji | 散発的 , 散発 (scattering). (various references) | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Japanese Katakana | さ"ぱつてき, さ"ぱつ (hair-cutting, hair-dressing, scattering). (various references) | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Korean | 산재하" (Sporadical). (various references) | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Manx | tiark (few, rare, scanty, scarce, short, sparse, tight, tight of money), thollaneagh (dizzy, giddy, heady, vertiginous). (various references) | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Pig Latin | oradicspay esporádico (snatchy), raro (close, exquisite, infrequent, out-and-out, rare, rose, scant, scanty, scarce, seldom, sparse, tight, uncommon, unique, unusual, unwonted). (various references) sporadic (sporadically). (various references) спорадический, единичный (unit, unitary). (various references) sporadičan, mestimičan (scattered). (various references) esporádico. (various references) sporadisk (episodic, odd). (various references) tek tük (here and there, odd, stray), aralıklı (discontinuous, episodic, fitful, intermittent, scattered, spaced-out, sparse, spasmodic), arada sırada görülen, ara sıra olan (occasional, snatchy). (various references) спорадичний (sporadical). (various references) rời rạc (desultory, fragmentary, incohesive, rigmarole, sporadical, straggling, straggly, unconnected), lác đác thỉnh thoảng (sporadical), không thường xuyên (far-between, infrequent, sporadical). (various references) | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Language | Period | Translations |
| Greek | 700 BCE-300 CE | sporadikos. (various references) |
| Medieval Latin | 700-1500 | sporadicus. (various references) |
| Source: compiled by the editor from various references. | ||
Derivations | |
Words beginning with "sporadic": sporadically. (additional references) | |
| |
"Sporadic" is suggested in spellcheckers for the following: Paradjik, Pogradec, Saperavi, separovic, sparadic, Sporades, sporatic, sporradic. (additional references) | |
| Source: compiled by the editor, based on several corpora (additional references). | |
| # of Phoneme Matches | Pronunciation | Word(s) rhyming with "sporadic" (pronounced spera"dik) |
| 4 | -a" d i k | nomadic. |
| 3 | -d i k | acidic, Benedick, comedic, encyclopedic, episodic, heraldic, medic, melodic, nordic, orthopedic, paramedic, periodic, rhapsodic, tornadic. |
Source: compiled by the editor (additional references); see credits. | ||
Scrabble® Enable2K-Verified Anagrams | |
Direct Anagrams: picadors. | |
| Words within the letters "a-c-d-i-o-p-r-s" | |
-1 letter: parodic, picador, picaros, prosaic, sarcoid, sparoid. | |
-2 letters: aroids, cairds, capris, capsid, copras, darics, picaro, psocid, radios, rapids, scoria, sparid. | |
-3 letters: acids, acrid, adios, apods, aroid, asdic, aspic, cadis, caids, caird, capos, cards, carpi, carps, codas, coirs, copra, cords, coria, corps, craps, crisp, crops, daric, dipso, disco, dopas, dorps, dorsa, drips, drops, orcas, padis. | |
| Words containing the letters "a-c-d-i-o-p-r-s" | |
+1 letter: dropsical, picadores, rhapsodic. | |
+2 letters: chipboards, clipboards, parodistic, picofarads, predacious, prosodical, scorpaenid, sporicidal. | |
+3 letters: aphrodisiac, brachiopods, caparisoned, caryopsides, comradeship, diastrophic, discography, duplicators, harpsichord, periodicals, rhapsodical, scorpaenids. | |
+4 letters: aphrodisiacs, branchiopods, cardiographs, comradeships, decapitators, demographics, deprecations, depreciators, diaphoretics, dictatorship, dimercaprols, dipterocarps, discographer, discographic, harpsichords, orthopaedics, postcardlike, predications, proboscidean, proboscidian, prosodically, ropedancings, sporadically. | |
+5 letters: anaphrodisiac, aphrodisiacal, cardiopathies, commandership, depreciations, dictatorships, discographers, discographies, endoparasitic, hypochondrias, perissodactyl, predominances, privatdocents, proboscideans, proboscidians, propaedeutics, quadraphonics, quadriphonics, quasiperiodic, radioisotopic, rhapsodically. | |
| 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. | |
| 1. Definition 2. Crosswords 3. Usage: Commercial 4. Images: Photo Album | 5. Quotations: Non-fiction 6. Usage Frequency 7. Expressions 8. Expressions: Internet | 9. Translations: Modern 10. Translations: Ancient 11. Derivations 12. Rhymes | 13. Anagrams 14. Bibliography |
Copyright © Philip M. Parker, INSEAD. Terms of Use.