fitful
Americanadjective
adjective
Other Word Forms
Etymology
Origin of fitful
Explanation
An adjective that sounds a little like what it means, fitful means stopping and starting, on-again off-again, switching suddenly. I had a fitful night's sleep: I woke up several times throughout the night. A fit is a disturbance that happens without warning, like a tantrum, tremor, or spasm. If something is fitful, it's "full of fits." A night at the opera is a night of fitful pleasures: the arias are cool, but the rest of the show is boring. I've made only fitful progress trying to lose weight, because I lose only a few pounds at a time, and they almost always come right back: my progress is fitful because it comes in "fits and starts."
Vocabulary lists containing fitful
The Vocabulary.com Top 1000
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Grade 12, List 2
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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.
Now I was lifting myself from the bathroom floor with shaking hands for a fitful night of tossing in bed, a raging headache waiting for me in the morning.
From Slate ● Jun. 13, 2026
No other Victorian poet could have brought off such a fitful and obsessive work; no one else could have sustained such music and emotion for more than 100 pages.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Feb. 20, 2026
Sánchez tried to get some sleep, but it was a fitful rest.
From Los Angeles Times ● Nov. 6, 2025
Over time, the late night TV host becomes your best friend, or a figure that haunts your fitful dreams.
From New York Times ● Mar. 21, 2024
I wake up after a fitful night to the sound of urgent whispering on the other side of the door.
From "Linked" by Gordon Korman
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.
