The sporadic is associated with the occasional. For example: "For me, taking a taxi is something sporadic since I usually travel in my own car."
The Greek word sporadikós , which can be translated as “dispersed” , came into medieval Latin as sporadicus . From there comes the adjective sporadic , which refers to that which is fortuitous or eventual .
For example: “The famous writer had a sporadic visit to this region, when in his youth he worked in a grape harvest” , “We had some sporadic complaints, but in general people are satisfied with our management” , “It was a sporadic romance, never “We had a formal relationship.”
The sporadic, in short, is something occasional . It is not closely linked to a past event nor is it its consequence; nor does it continue to develop in the future .
Sporadic consumption
An individual who only smokes a few cigarettes a month can be considered a sporadic smoker . The case of a heavy or frequent smoker is different, who already has this habit incorporated into their routine.
This is part of the so-called sporadic or occasional consumption , which these people carry out intermittently, allowing long intervals of time to pass between one intake and another. Generally, this way of consuming tobacco and other similar products is closely linked to the search for being part of a group, although it can also arise from the need for relaxation or pleasure.
Sporadic consumption does not reach the level of an addiction , and this makes it more difficult to justify: the individual has the powers to communicate with his environment without having to fall into this harmful activity, but his lack of self-confidence pushes him to take refuge in narcotic substances to lose inhibitions.
The sporadic consumption of a substance is carried out intermittently, with long intervals between each intake.
Other uses of the concept
Suppose a novelist assumes the presidency of a writers' association for two months, as a temporary replacement for the acting president who suffers from illness . When this man manages to recover, he resumes his position. The novelist who replaced him was, in short, a sporadic president of the institution, since he had never been so before and has no intention of being so again in the future.
An actor with a sporadic role in a soap opera, for his part, appears only in a few chapters. He does not play a character with a constant presence in the series, but rather he barely participates in a certain story within the main plot.
Finally, a person who always travels in his own car can use the services of a taxi sporadically : only when his vehicle breaks down, something that is not frequent.
Synonyms and antonyms of sporadic
Among the synonyms that dictionaries provide us with for the term sporadic , we can highlight the following, some of which have already been mentioned in the previous paragraphs: loose, eventual, fortuitous , occasional and isolated . It should be noted that it is also possible to replace the adverb corresponding to this word with the expression from time to time : "This is an activity that I do sporadically / from time to time."
Regarding antonyms, we simply have the following two: regular and constant . Unlike what can happen with opposite words such as open and close or movement and stillness , the contrast that takes place between sporadic and its antonyms is particular in that it is not the two vertices, so to speak, of the use of energy, but from two less extreme points.
To understand this observation we can imagine a line that at one end has the concept "never" and at the other, "always": neither "sporadic" nor "regular", to name just two of the previous examples, are found. at these points, because they do not reach the same degree of periodicity. The sporadic is superior to the fortuitous , which, in turn, surpasses the rare or the unique ; For its part, the regular does not occur all the time , although it does have a greater degree than the sporadic.