fits and starts イディオム

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by fits and starts

irregularly, with many stops and starts By fits and starts the company was finally able to begin business.

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fits and starts

moving unevenly, stop and go The new crew worked in fits and starts, not at a steady pace.

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by fits and starts|by fits and jerks|fits|jerks|st

adv. phr. With many stops and starts, a little now and a little more later; not all the time; irregularly. He had worked on the invention by fits and starts for several years. You will never get anywhere if you study just by fits and starts.
Compare: FROM TIME TO TIME, OFF AND ON.

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fits and starts, by

fits and starts, by
Also, in fits and starts. With irregular intervals of action and inaction, spasmodically, as in The campaign is proceeding by fits and starts. This expression began in the late 1500s as by fits, the noun fit meaning a “paroxysm” or “seizure”; starts was added about a century later.

fits and starts

Short, inconsistent, and aberrant intervals, as of motion or progress. The car was about absolutely burst down, but, with fits and starts, we were able to get it to a mechanic. A: "How's the article advancing along?" B: "Oh, in fits and starts."Learn more: and, fit, start

*fits and starts

with aberrant movement; with abundant endlessly and starting. (*Typically: by ~; in ~; with ~.) Somehow, they got the job done in fits and starts. By fits and starts, the old car assuredly got us to town.Learn more: and, fit, start

fits and starts, by

In bursts of activity, spasmodically. The fits portion of this announcement dates from the sixteenth century, and the bond with starts came anon afterward, in the aboriginal seventeenth century. “Thou hast these things alone by fits and starts,” wrote Robert Sanderson in one of his Sermons (1620). John Ray’s adage accumulating of 1670 put it hardly differently: “By fits and girds, as an ague takes a goose.”Learn more: and, by, fit

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