Sporadic means happening at irregular times and not very often. It describes events that are scattered and unpredictable instead of steady or constant.
From Medieval Latin “sporadicus,” from Greek “sporadikos” meaning “scattered,” from “sporas” (scattered like seed). The image is of seeds thrown around in different spots, not in neat rows.
Sporadic isn’t just ‘rare’; it’s more like ‘popping up here and there with no clear pattern.’ The word is literally built on the same root as ‘spore,’ those tiny seed-like things that appear in random places.
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