intermittent

Etymology

It is borrowed from Latin intermittēns (“leaving off, ceasing”),^{[2][3][4][5][6]} the present participle of intermittō (“to leave off, pause, interrupt”),^[2][3][4][5] formed from inter (“between”) and mittō (“to send, let go”),^[3][4][7] the source of mission.^[3][4] The verb also gave English intermit and intermission.^[3][4] Barnhart allows that the English adjective may instead have been formed from intermit with -ent, on the Latin model.^[4][8] The OED compares French intermittent, recorded in 1598.^[2]

Earliest recorded meaning

Of a pulse or fever, stopping and starting at intervals: 1603, in P. Holland's translation of Plutarch's Moralia.^[2][4] Merriam-Webster dates the word to 1601,^[5] Etymonline to about 1600,^[3] and the Shorter Oxford and the Oxford Dictionary of English put it in the mid 16th century.^[9][10]

Semantic evolution

The word began in medicine, of fevers and pulses that come and go,^[2] and after 1693 an intermittent was a noun for an intermittent fever.^[2][9] Johnson (1755) defined it as "coming by fits", with a medical quotation about pains.^[11] General use, of anything that stops and starts, is recorded from 1675, in Ogilby's Britannia,^[2] and in the late 19th century it entered technical terms such as intermittent sterilization in microbiology (1893).^[2][9]

Timeline

• 1603 – of a pulse or fever, in Holland's Plutarch.^[2][4]
• 1675 – in general use, occurring at intervals.^[2]
• 1693 – noun, an intermittent fever.^[2]
• 1755 – Johnson: “coming by fits”.^[11]
• 1893 – in technical terms such as intermittent sterilization.^[2]

Meanings

Adjective

1. Stopping and starting at intervals; not continuous: intermittent showers through the afternoon.^[5][12][9]
2. Of a fever or pulse, coming and going at intervals.^[2][5]

Noun

1. An intermittent fever.^[2][9]

Word family

• intermittence
• intermittently
• nonintermittent
• unintermittent

Related words

• inter-
• intermit
• intermittency
• intermission
• mission
• remit

References

1. ^ a b Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l m n Oxford English Dictionary Online (accessed March 2026), Oxford: Oxford University Press
3. ^ a b c d e f Harper, Douglas. Online Etymology Dictionary, https://www.etymonline.com
4. ^ a b c d e f g h Barnhart, Robert K. (1988), The Barnhart Dictionary of Etymology
5. ^ a b c d e Merriam-Webster Unabridged Dictionary (2024), online ed., Springfield, Mass.: Merriam-Webster
6. ^ Klein, Ernest. A Comprehensive Etymological Dictionary of the English Language. 2 vols. Amsterdam: Elsevier, 1966–1967.
7. ^ The American Heritage Dictionary of the English Language (online 2024), 5th ed., Boston: Houghton Mifflin Harcourt
8. ^ Barnhart, Robert K., ed. (1995), The Barnhart Concise Dictionary of Etymology, New York: HarperCollins
9. ^ a b c d e Shorter Oxford English Dictionary on Historical Principles (2002), 5th ed., ed. William R. Trumble and Angus Stevenson, Oxford: Oxford University Press
10. ^ Stevenson, Angus, ed. (2010), Oxford Dictionary of English, 3rd ed., Oxford: Oxford University Press
11. ^ a b Johnson, Samuel (1755), A Dictionary of the English Language, London; 4th ed. 1773; Johnson's Dictionary Online, ed. Beth Rapp Young et al.
12. ^ Collins English Dictionary (2023), Glasgow: HarperCollins