Intermittent means starting and stopping at irregular intervals, rather than happening continuously or predictably. An intermittent rain shower might sprinkle for a few minutes, stop for an hour, start again briefly, then quit. The windshield wipers have an intermittent setting for exactly this kind of unpredictable drizzle.

Think of an old ceiling fan that works intermittently: sometimes it spins, sometimes it stops, and you never quite know when it will change. A student with intermittent attendance misses school unpredictably, showing up some days but not others, without any clear pattern.

The word describes things that flicker in and out rather than flowing steadily. A radio signal might become intermittent in the mountains, cutting in and out as you drive. Your internet connection might be intermittent during a storm, working fine one moment and dropping the next.

The opposite would be constant or continuous: something that keeps going without interruption. While a constant drip from a faucet happens steadily, an intermittent drip is maddeningly irregular, making it harder to predict.