0 in a way that often stops and starts and is not regular or continuous: --
1 for short, brief periods: --
She slept fitfully.
During the last half of last year things moved painfully slowly and fitfully, but nevertheless in the right direction.
It is to this second course that we have drifted, somewhat fitfully, in the period since.
It increases the number of elderly people living alone who fret at night—sleeping fitfully, woken by every little noise, afraid of becoming a victim.
He is not refreshed, dozes fitfully through the day, and by night he cannot get to sleep.
But, almost invariably, at the moment of their highest success they suddenly and silently disappear, to return only fitfully and at prolonged intervals.
He oscillates from spirited independence, which he shows fitfully, to extraordinary obsequious acts of reparative guilt.
During the latter half of last year the gloom fitfully lightened here and there.
Now it fitfully and unconvincingly preaches what we practise.
