like fits

English

Etymology

As in paroxysms or fits (This etymology is missing or incomplete. Please add to it, or discuss it at the Etymology scriptorium.)

Adverb

like fits (comparative more like fits, superlative most like fits)

1. (obsolete, weather) in squalls, strongly, in paroxysms
   • (Can we date this quote?), Henry Adams, Letters Of Henry Adams 1858 1891:

     That night we arrived at a little place called Georgenthal where we got a jolly supper and slept in two most romantically large, rickety, cold and ghostly chambers, with the wind outside blowing like fits and creaking the dismal old sign in the most pleasing manner.

   • 1903, Erskine Childers, chapter VIII, in The Riddle of the Sands, Nelson Library edition, London: T Nelson & Sons, page 98:

     It was blowing like fits; if anything had carried away I should have been on shore in a jiffy..

   • 1907, “Robertsbridge - a Mediaeval Village”, in Diary of Ethel Mercy Burchett – a Robertsbridge Girl‎^[1], retrieved 26 July 2024:

     […] the weather has changed instead of freezing now it is blowing gales and raining like fits.