fits and starts
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fits and starts pl (plural only)
- (idiomatic) Activity which is intermittent, variable in intensity, and prolonged by interruptions.
- Progress in this project has come in fits and starts.
- 1681, John Dryden, Epilogue for ‘The King's House’, lines 1–2:
- We act by fits and starts, like drowning men,
But just peep up, and then pop down again.
- 1811 December, [Leigh Hunt], “Art. X.—The Feast of the Poets.”, in [Leigh Hunt], editor, The Reflector, […], volume II, number IV, London: […] John Hunt, […] sold by J. Carpenter, […], →OCLC, page 314:
- T'other day as Apollo sat pitching his darts, / Through the clouds of November, by fits and by starts, / He began to consider how long it had been, / Since the bards of Old England a session had seen.
- 1841, Charles Dickens, chapter 2, in Master Humphrey's Clock:
- I spent the night in fits and starts, getting up and lying down full twenty times, and dreaming the same dream over and over again.
- 1955 December 26, “Old Play in Manhattan”, in Time:
- It is a stammered, sleazy chronicle, told by fits and starts in bits and pieces, and constantly interrupted by the director and actors.
- 2007, "Australian Premier vows troops pullout," Gulf Daily News (Bahrain), 22 Dec.,
- Paying for the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan in fits and starts undermines US military planning and risks the gains made by US troops.
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intermittent activity
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