Spasmodic means happening in sudden, irregular bursts rather than smoothly or steadily. The word comes from spasm, which is a sudden, involuntary muscle contraction.

When something is spasmodic, it starts and stops unpredictably, like hiccups or a sputtering engine running out of gas. A student making spasmodic progress on a project works intensely for a day, then ignores it for a week, then rushes through more work, creating an uneven, jerky pattern instead of steady advancement.

The word often describes physical movements: spasmodic twitching, spasmodic coughing fits that come and go without warning. But it can also describe irregular efforts or attention. A reader making spasmodic attempts to finish a book picks it up enthusiastically, sets it down for weeks, then reads three chapters in one sitting.

Spasmodic suggests something intense and hard to control: sudden bursts of activity followed by complete stops, like a lawn sprinkler that shoots water powerfully for ten seconds, goes silent, then suddenly spurts again. The pattern feels unpredictable and uncontrolled, whether it's describing muscle movements, work habits, or anything else that happens in irregular fits and starts.