fitful

adj

1. (obsolete)Characterized by fits (convulsions or seizures).

   “Duncane is in his Graue: After Lifes fitfull Feuer, he ſleepes well, Treaſon ha's done his worſt: not Steele, not Poyſon, Mallice domeſtique, forraine Leuie, nothing, Can touch him further.”

2. (broadly)Characterized by sudden bursts of activity with periods of inactivity in between; intermittent, irregular, unsteady.

   “His breathing was fitful.”

   “Troubled by her unfinished work, she fell into a fitful sleep.”

   “Harp of the North! that mouldering long hast hung On the witch-elm that shades Saint Fillan's spring, And down the fitful breeze thy numbers flung, Till envious ivy did around thee cling, Muffling with verdant ringlet every string,— […]”

   “Like the figures on arras, that gloomily glare Stirred by the breath of the wintry air, So seen by the dying lamp's fitful light, Lifeless, but life-like, and awful to sight; […]”

   “The cabin lamp—taking long swings this way and that— was burning fitfully, and casting fitful shadows upon the old man’s bolted door,—a thin one, with fixed blinds inserted, in place of upper panels.”