Sporadic

adj

adj ·3 syllables ·Common ·High school level

Definitions

Adjective
  1. 1
    (of diseases) occurring in isolated instances; not epidemic. archaic
  2. 2
    Rare and scattered in occurrence.

    "It was a stodgy, weary display from Mourinho’s team with only sporadic moments when they threatened Salvatore Sirigu’s goal and their manager seemed bewildered afterwards when he tried to explain what had gone wrong."

  3. 3
    Exhibiting random behavior; patternless.
  4. 4
    Not belonging to any infinite family; an exception to an otherwise orderly classification.
Adjective
  1. 1
    recurring in scattered and irregular or unpredictable instances wordnet

Synonyms

All synonyms
intermittentoccasionalspasmodicadventitiousadventitiousaimless

Example

More examples

"My connection has sporadic problems."

Etymology

From Medieval Latin sporadicus (whence also French sporadique, Italian sporadico, Spanish esporádico), from Ancient Greek σποραδικός (sporadikós), from σποράς (sporás, “scattered, dispersed”), from σπορά (sporá), σπόρος (spóros, “a sowing [of seed]”).

Related phrases

sporadic Esporadic group

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Data sourced from Wiktionary, WordNet, CMU, and other open linguistic databases. Updated March 2026.