verb
Other Word Forms
Etymology
Origin of intermit
1535–45; < Latin intermittere to leave a space between, drop (for a while), leave off, equivalent to inter- inter- + mittere to send, let go
Explanation
To intermit is to stop doing something for a while. You might intermit your Spanish classes this summer so you can take a full-time job as a lifeguard. Intermit is a formal or old-fashioned way to say "pause," or sometimes "pause periodically." It's much more common to use the adjective intermittent for things that start and stop, and both words come from the Latin inter, "between," and mittere, "to send." If you regularly intermit your dog training sessions, it's going to take a lot longer to teach Spot to heel!
Example Sentences
Examples are provided to illustrate real-world usage of words in context. Any opinions expressed do not reflect the views of Dictionary.com.
With the cold war's intermit tent crises no longer seeming so momentous, one eye of U.S. foreign policy has shifted to the long view.
From Time Magazine Archive
Run to your houses, fall upon your knees, Pray to the gods to intermit the plague55 That needs must light on this ingratitude.
From The Ontario High School Reader by Marty, A.E.
They came, to the number of thirty or forty; but not for their presence did the invisible revellers intermit their nocturnal visit.
From The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 16, No. 97, November, 1865 by Various
Hence some fevers perfectly intermit, the stomach recovering its complete action after the torpor and consequent orgasm, which constitute the paroxysm of fever, are terminated.
From Zoonomia, Vol. II Or, the Laws of Organic Life by Darwin, Erasmus
Not for a moment did Lallemant and Villetard, the two French agents, intermit their revolutionary agitation in the town.
From The Life of Napoleon Bonaparte Vol. I. (of IV.) by Sloane, William Milligan
Definitions and idiom definitions from Dictionary.com Unabridged, based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2023
Idioms from The American Heritage® Idioms Dictionary copyright © 2002, 2001, 1995 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company.
