FITS AND STARTS

fits and starts: translation

ague, arrhythmia, brokenness, bumpiness, capriciousness, chattering, choppiness, chorea, cold shivers, desultoriness, disconnectedness, discontinuity, eccentricity, erraticness, fibrillation, fitfulness, fluctuation, inconstancy, intermittence, irregularity, jactation, jactitation, jerkiness, joltiness, nonuniformity, palsy, patchiness, quaking, quavering, quivering, roughness, shakes, shaking, shivering, shivers, shuddering, spasms, spasticity, sporadicity, sporadicness, spottiness, stagger, succussion, trembling, tremulousness, uncertainty, unevenness, unmethodicalness, unpredictability, unsteadiness, unsystematicness, variability, vibration, whimsicality, wobble

fits and starts: translation

with irregular movement; with much stopping and starting. (*Typically: by \fits and starts; in \fits and starts; with\fits and starts.) •

Somehow, they got the job done in fits and starts.

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By fits and starts, the old car finally got us to town.