Fitfully

adv. [f. prec. + -LY².] In a fitful manner; by fits and starts.

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1792. Wordsw., Descr. Sketches, Poems (1888), 17/2.

	Fitfully, and in flashes, through his soul,
	Like sun-lit tempests, troubled transports roll.

2

1834. Herschel, in Mrs. Somerville, Connect. Phys. Sc., xxxvii. (1849), 424. Here we have a star fitfully variable to an astonishing extent, and whose fluctuations are spread over centuries, apparently in no settled period, and in no regular progression.

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1889. Ruskin, Præterita, III. 181. The fireflies among the scented thickets shone fitfully in the still undarkened air.

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