intermittent, a. (n.)
(ɪntəˈmɪtənt)
[ad. L. intermittent-em, pr. pple. of intermittĕre to intermit1; cf. F. intermittent (1598 in Godef. Compl.).]
A. adj. That intermits or ceases for a time; coming at intervals; operating by fits and starts. a. spec. in Path. of the pulse, of a fever, etc. intermittent claudication: see claudication.
| 1603 Holland Plutarch's Mor. 1277 Beating..now and than like intermittent pulses. 1609 ― Amm. Marcell. xxxi. xii. 420 Fits of an intermittent ague. 1625 Hart Anat. Ur. i. iii. 33 How canst thou..tell whether it be an intermittent or continuall feauer? 1796 Burke Regic. Peace ii. Wks. VIII. 214, This disorder was not in its nature intermittent. 1834 J. Forbes Laennec's Dis. Chest (ed. 4) 487 The pulse small, hard and intermittent. 1876 tr. Wagner's Gen. Pathol. 131 Intermittent fever is not contagious. |
b. In other technical collocations. intermittent movement (see quot. 1959); intermittent sterilization, a microbiological procedure which accomplishes sterilization without using the high temperatures required to kill spores outright, and which involves alternately maintaining the materials to be sterilized at a temperature high enough to kill vegetative cells and at a much lower temperature during which germination of spores occurs (producing new vegetative cells to be killed during the next high-temperature period).
| 1893 tr. W. Migula's Introd. Pract. Bacteriol. ii. 41 The test-tubes containing the blood serum may be now subjected to ‘fractional or intermittent sterilisation’, by exposing them for an hour a day for eight days to a temperature of 58°C. 1959 W. S. Sharps Dict. Cinematogr. 104/1 Intermittent movement, the term used for the method of film transport in a camera, projector or printer, whereby the film is moved intermittently and only exposed to light when stationary. 1969 S. T. Lyles Biol. Micro-organisms v. 130 Intermittent sterilization may be accomplished by boiling or steaming in the autoclave at O pressure. |
c. In general use.
| 1675 Ogilby Brit. 36 A Village with an intermittent Market. 1706 Phillips, Intermittent Stitch (in Surgery), a kind of Stitch made at certain separate Points in the sowing of transverse or cross Wounds. 1858 Merc. Marine Mag. V. 374 The new Light is intermittent every half minute. 1872 Nicholson Palæont. 35 The work of rock-deposition is an intermittent process. |
B. n. Path. An intermittent fever. Also fig.
| 1693 Phil. Trans. XVII. 720 Quotidian, Tertian and Quartan Intermittents. Ibid. 721 That no body dies of an Intermittent but in the Cold Fit. 1772–84 Cook Voy. (1790) I. 270 Mr. Sporing also, and a sailor..were seized with the deadly intermittent. 1869 E. A. Parkes Pract. Hygiene (ed. 3) 70 The air of marshes is the sole cause of intermittents. 1872 O. W. Holmes Poet Breakf.-t. iv. 118 Struggling with the chills and heats of his artistic intermittent. |