intermit

To interrupt, to stop or cease temporarily or periodically; to suspend.

Verb

  1. To interrupt, to stop or cease temporarily or periodically; to suspend.
    • Pray to the gods to intermit the plague. - 1599 (first performance), William Shakespeare, “The Tragedie of Iulius Cæsar”, in Mr. William Shakespeares Comedies, Histories, & Tragedies […] (First Folio), London: […] Isaac...
    • The bell doth toll for him, that thinks it doth; and though it intermit again, yet from that minute, that that occasion wrought upon him, he is united to God. - 1624, John Donne, Devotions Upon Emergent Occasions,...
    • Idleness[…]of body is nothing but a kind of benumbing laziness, intermitting exercise, which, if we may believe Fernelius, “[…] makes them unapt to do anything whatever.” - 1624, Democritus Junior [pseudonym; Robert...

Origin

From Latin intermittere, from inter- + mittere.

Forms

intermits intermitting intermitted

Related

intermission mission

Derived

intermittedly intermittence intermittency intermittent intermitter intermittingly unintermitted unintermitting