From Longman Dictionary of Contemporary Englishfitfulfit‧ful /ˈfɪtfəl/ adjective SHORT TIMEnot regular, and starting and stopping often John awoke from a fitful sleep. The peace talks only seem to be making fitful progress. —fitfully adverb She slept fitfully.
Examples from the Corpus
fitful• It smeared the faces of the men in the room, fighting a losing, fitful battle with the shadows.• They passed into the fitful darkness of the dock cavern.• He enters his home and passes a fitful night.• Encased in iron lungs, tortured victims vainly chased slumber through long, fitful nights.• You can not, in a post-industrial nation, make more than fitful sense of an early Victorian doctrine of class-war.• He finally fell into a fitful sleep.• It wasn't until dawn that she finally drifted off into an all too brief and fitful sleep.fitful sleep• It wasn't until dawn that she finally drifted off into an all too brief and fitful sleep.• Thunder woke her out of a fitful sleep. 