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/baɪ fɪts ənd stɑrts/ Listen

noun

Fit n.

1.

A stroke or blow. (Obs. or R.) "Curse on that cross, quoth then the Sarazin, That keeps thy body from the bitter fit."

2.

A sudden and violent attack of a disorder; a stroke of disease, as of epilepsy or apoplexy, which produces convulsions or unconsciousness; a convulsion; a paroxysm; hence, a period of exacerbation of a disease; in general, an attack of disease; as, a fit of sickness. "And when the fit was on him, I did mark How he did shake."

3.

A mood of any kind which masters or possesses one for a time; a temporary, absorbing affection; a paroxysm; as, a fit of melancholy, of passion, or of laughter. "All fits of pleasure we balanced by an equal degree of pain." "The English, however, were on this subject prone to fits of jealously."

4.

A passing humor; a caprice; a sudden and unusual effort, activity, or motion, followed by relaxation or inaction; an impulsive and irregular action. "The fits of the season."

5.

A darting point; a sudden emission. (R.) "A tongue of light, a fit of flame."

By fits, By fits and starts, by intervals of action and repose; impulsively and irregularly; intermittently.

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Etymology of 'By fits and starts'

Collaborative International Dictionary of English 0.48

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"By fits and starts" Quotes from Famous Books

... for Charley and Hubert to obey orders, for the ship rolled so tremendously that they could only proceed with their dressing by fits and starts, and were more than once interrupted by attacks of their weary sea-sickness. However, their father stayed with them, helping and joking with them until they were ready to go up. Then, taking them by the arm, he assisted them up the stairs to ...

— Out on the Pampas - The Young Settlers • G. A. Henty

... irksome, and my having the inclination to view it in that light is to me the surest demonstration that my mind was in great want of some discipline, and some regular exertion, for hitherto I have read by fits and starts and just as it pleased me. I hope that this vacation [summer of 1830] will confer on me one benefit more important than any having reference merely to my class—I mean the habit of steady application ...

— The Life of William Ewart Gladstone, Vol. 1 (of 3) - 1809-1859 • John Morley

... talk and manners, and that now-departed and hardly-remembered raft-life, I will throw in, in this place, a chapter from a book which I have been working at, by fits and starts, during the past five or six years, and may possibly finish in the course of five or six more. The book is a story which details some passages in the life of an ignorant village boy, Huck Finn, son of the town drunkard of my time out west, there. ...

— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain

... of Perce Murgatroyd is founded on the quality rather than the quantity of his output. To our eternal loss he suffered from a temperament. He worked only by fits and starts. He never overcame a superstition that "Monday was a bad day for good work." And he was too conscientious an artist to attempt anything on days when the sky was overcast and the light bad. Often too, when he had actually made a start, ...

— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 158, June 9, 1920 • Various

... B.C. to Greece, spreading with lightning-like rapidity over Europe and displacing the use of bronze everywhere. Yet, as a matter of fact, the work of man does develop in exactly this haphazard way, by fits and starts and sudden leaps of progress after millennia of stagnation. Throwsback to barbarism are just as frequent. The analogy of natural evolution is completely ...

— History Of Egypt, Chaldaea, Syria, Babylonia, And Assyria In The Light Of Recent Discovery • L.W. King and H.R. Hall

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