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!
Vocabulary lists containing intermit
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.
See Examples For:
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
And having risen, he did not intermit his industry for a moment.
From The Life of Napoleon Bonaparte Vol. IV. (of IV.) by William Milligan Sloane
Though often in feeble health, he seldom allowed physical languor to intermit his work.
From History of Rationalism Embracing a Survey of the Present State of Protestant Theology by J. F. (John Fletcher) Hurst
Again and again did Dr. Browne, brigade surgeon, who concerned himself for her like a brother, advise her to consider her weakness, and intermit her exhausting duties.
From Mary S. Peake The Colored Teacher at Fortress Monroe by Lewis C. (Lewis Conger) Lockwood
Then she must forgive, unconditionally; for it would never do to intermit all praying until somebody else should come to a right, mind.
From A Letter of Credit by Susan Warner
For the same reason the wailing is again intermitted while the grave is being dug.
From Fetichism in West Africa Forty Years' Observations of Native Customs and Superstitions by Robert Hamill Nassau
The frog chirped again from the trees, and the far-off owl hooted in the wood, resuming his melancholy song, that had been so briefly intermitted.
From Horse-Shoe Robinson A Tale of the Tory Ascendency by John Pendleton Kennedy
The heart-sounds were so weak that the presence or absence of bruit could not be safely predicated; meantime, the pulsations intermitted in a most alarming manner.
From Neuralgia and the Diseases that Resemble it by Francis E. Anstie
The men, under the lead of the chaplain, built a large and commodious house of logs, in which religious services—never intermitted, when possible to be held—and literary exercises were held.
From Historical sketch of the Fifteenth Regiment, New Jersey Volunteers First Brigade, First Division, Sixth Corps by Anonymous
His days of "literary loafing" allowed him to enjoy the pleasures of friendship which during his periods of work were necessarily, to some extent, intermitted.
From William Hickling Prescott by Harry Thurston Peck
Mrs Ndisang said "no reason was given" as to why intermission was refused "but it was very clear intermitting was not an option".
From BBC ● Apr. 24, 2023
The trees that stood in front of the house ever and anon yielded to the intermitting gusts of wind, and bowed their heads as though in submission to a superior power.
From Harper's New Monthly Magazine, No. V, October, 1850, Volume I. by
Mrs. B. Springs which do not constantly flow, are called intermitting, and are occasioned by the reservoir being imperfectly supplied.
From Conversations on Natural Philosophy, in which the Elements of that Science are Familiarly Explained by Thomas P. Jones
Now all was hush, and you might have supposed he had fallen asleep, for in that hush you heard what seemed an intermitting snore.
From Recreations of Christopher North, Volume I (of 2) by John Lyde Wilson
A certain Person, who purposely sunned himself for a considerable Time, in the clear Day of an intermitting tertian Fever, underwent the Assault of an Apoplexy, which carried him off the following Day.
From Advice to the people in general, with regard to their health by S. A. D. (Samuel Auguste David) Tissot
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.
