Find the word definition

The Collaborative International Dictionary
At intervals

Interval \In"ter*val\, n. [L. intervallum; inter between + vallum a wall: cf. F. intervalle. See Wall.]

  1. A space between things; a void space intervening between any two objects; as, an interval between two houses or hills.

    'Twixt host and host but narrow space was left, A dreadful interval.
    --Milton.

  2. Space of time between any two points or events; as, the interval between the death of Charles I. of England, and the accession of Charles II.

  3. A brief space of time between the recurrence of similar conditions or states; as, the interval between paroxysms of pain; intervals of sanity or delirium.

  4. (Mus.) Difference in pitch between any two tones.

    At intervals, coming or happening with intervals between; now and then. ``And Miriam watch'd and dozed at intervals.''
    --Tennyson.

    Augmented interval (Mus.), an interval increased by half a step or half a tone.

Usage examples of "at intervals".

Three or four of them would cast well-aimed cudgels at his face at intervals so nicely timed that the great beast could do nothing but fend off the missiles as they sped toward him.

As I watched them playing about I discovered, not only that they suckled their young, but that at intervals they rose to the surface to breathe as well as to feed upon certain grasses and a strange, scarlet lichen which grew upon the rocks just above the water line.

All day, he'd been coming into the room at intervals as though he had something to say, and then departing, shaking his head like an absent-minded old fool—.

Some small trouble with one of his legs gave him a tendency to veer off course, but he corrected this at intervals so that his progress was a series of arcs.

Junie sat beside him, putting damp cloths on his brow and sponging his face at intervals.

He heard the noises of camp, men singing about ships and the sea, in odd contrast to the dust sliding under his feet, the hanks of dry grass his hands closed over at intervals, and thick patches of fennel rising up before him.