Meaning of fits and starts | Babel Free

Definitions

Activity which is intermittent, variable in intensity, and prolonged by interruptions.

idiomatic, plural, plural-only

Equivalents

Examples

“Progress in this project has come in fits and starts.”

“We act by fits and starts, like drowning men, But just peep up, and then pop down again.”

“T'other day as Apollo sat pitching his darts, / Through the clouds of November, by fits and by starts, / He began to consider how long it had been, / Since the bards of Old England a session had seen.”

“I spent the night in fits and starts, getting up and lying down full twenty times, and dreaming the same dream over and over again.”

“It is a stammered, sleazy chronicle, told by fits and starts in bits and pieces, and constantly interrupted by the director and actors.”

“2007, "Australian Premier vows troops pullout," Gulf Daily News (Bahrain), 22 Dec., Paying for the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan in fits and starts undermines US military planning and risks the gains made by US troops.”

CEFR level