fitful

The dull sky soon began to tell its meaning by sending down herald-drops of rain, and the stagnant air of the day changed into a fitful breeze which played about their faces.

It was one of these covered days of fitful sunshine, of light, unsteady winds, with a swell from the westward, and hazy in general, but with the land about the Cape at times distinctly visible.

Always of a sedate, taciturn disposition, he now fell into so deep a dejection that nothing could hold his attention, yet anything--a footfall, the sudden closing of a door--aroused in him a fitful interest; one might have called it an apprehension.

Every young man who came to the house- seeing those impressionable, smiling young faces (smiling probably at their own happiness), feeling the eager bustle around him, and hearing the fitful bursts of song and music and the inconsequent but friendly prattle of young girls ready for anything and full of hope- experienced the same feeling; sharing with the young folk of the Rostovs' household a readiness to fall in love and an expectation of happiness.

'I shall perish like that!' he thought, and not to give way to his terror he urged on the horse still more, peering into the snowy darkness in which he saw only flitting and fitful points of light.

As he watches the spasmodic shoots and darts that break out of her face and limbs, like fitful lightning out of a dark sky, some contagion in them seizes upon him: insomuch that he has to withdraw himself to a lean arm-chair by the hearth--placed there, perhaps, for such emergencies--and to sit in it, holding tight, until he has got the better of this unclean spirit of imitation.

The cabin lamp --taking long swings this way and that --was burning fitfully, and casting fitful shadows upon the old man's bolted door, --a thin one, with fixed blinds inserted, in place of upper panels.

Even as he went on, the shout, the laugh, the shriek the sob, rose up in unison, till they changed into the hollow, fitful, and uneven sound of the wind, as it fought among the pine-trees on those three lonely hills.

He was a strange wayward being, moody, fitful, and melancholy--at times almost morose.

At length you drop into an uneasy and fitful slumber, have bad dreams, and wake up late the next morning.

The fitful bursts of sleet had changed into a steady rain and the horses had heavy work even without a load behind them.

The groans of the wounded, mingled with the roaring and growling of the great beasts which the noise and firelight had attracted, kept sleep, except in its most fitful form, from the tired eyes.