Fitful

a. [f. FIT sb.² + -FUL. A word used once by Shakspere, and popularized by writers of the beginning of this century.]

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1. Of a disease: Characterized by fits or paroxysms. Obs. exc. in Shakspere’s phrase.

2

1605. Shaks., Macb., III. ii. 22.

	Duncane is in his Graue:
	After Lifes fitfull Feuer, he sleepes well.

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1744. Armstrong, Preserv. Health, I. 131.

	Quartana there presides: a meagre fiend
	Begot by Eurus, when his brutal force
	Compressed the slothful Naiad of the Fens.
	From such a mixture sprung, this fitful pest
	With feverish blasts subdues the sickening land.

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2. Characterized by irregular fits of activity or strength; coming and going by fits and starts; full of irregular changes; spasmodic, shifting, changing, capricious.

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1810. Scott, Lady of L., I. Prol.

	Harp of the North! that mouldering long hast hung
	On the witch-elm that shades Saint Fillan’s spring,
	And down the fitful breeze thy numbers flung,
	Till envious ivy did around thee cling,
	Muffling with verdant ringlet every string,

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1816. Byron, Siege Cor., xxi.

	Like the figures on arras, that gloomily glare,
	Stirr’d by the breath of the wintry air,
	So seen by the dying lamp’s fitful light,
	Lifeless, but life-like, and awful to sight.

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1832. Ht. Martineau, Each & All, ii. 18. His impulses were generous, but fitful; and there was an excitement about him which had never yet been absorbed by any pursuit, or allayed by any possession.

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1841. Miall, Nonconf., I. 1. The fitful and convulsive energy they have at times displayed has been, almost without exception, on the outermost region of the ground for which they have contended.

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1874. Motley, Barneveld, I. i. 5. The Tragedy which was soon to sweep solemnly across Europe was foreshadowed in the first fitful years of peace.

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