How to Use spasmodic in a Sentence

spasmodic

adjective

• He made only spasmodic attempts to lose weight.
• The result of this was a loud blast on the cornet caused by a spasmodic laugh into it.
  — Kori Rumore, chicagotribune.com, 17 Mar. 2022
• Getting me to this spasmodic state is, of course, a troll’s sole purpose.
  — Virginia Heffernan, WIRED, 12 Mar. 2018
• This week the passing game remained spasmodic, and West Virginia was able to shut down the running game as well.
  — R.j. Coyle, Dallas News, 25 Sep. 2021
• Noise, yes, lots of it, but mostly motion as we are thrown left and right against our straps in spasmodic little jerks.
  — William Harwood, CBS News, 14 July 2019
• But state support in tidal energy—in the UK and beyond—has been spasmodic at best.
  — WIRED, 26 Oct. 2022
• Meanwhile, Wall Street and the media are spasmodic in their views of the company’s value.
  — Vanityfair.com, VanityFair.com, 1 Mar. 2017
• The songs of In Utero are fractured, spasmodic, wrenched out of shape — notes pulled inside out, meanings stood on their pointy little heads and spun for kicks.
  — Howard Hampton, Spin, 21 Sep. 2023
• When one of the furry forms tips over without breaking stride, the men burst into spasmodic giggles.
  — Sarah Medford, WSJ, 4 Dec. 2018
• As a consequence, fragmentary and spasmodic reforms have failed to reach down to the profoundest needs of the poor.
  — Valerie Strauss, Washington Post, 15 Jan. 2018
• Hints of the show’s absolutely spasmodic joy are there in the music choices.
  — Hillary Kelly, Vulture, 23 Dec. 2021
• Have Donovan Mitchell play like a spasmodic blind man through the first half, relying on Bojan Bogdanovic to save them, to keep them close over that span.
  — Gordon Monson, The Salt Lake Tribune, 17 Apr. 2022
• His body made slow and spasmodic movements, according to the complaint.
  — Carol Robinson | [e-mail], al, 3 Mar. 2023
• Yet Porter lives on in such recordings of single songs more than in the spasmodic revival of shows that often need heavy rewriting to exist onstage at all.
  — Adam Gopnik, The New Yorker, 13 Jan. 2020
• The album, due Oct. 28, has the same fury of its predecessor with all the spasmodic, head-turning weirdness Patton fans expect.
  — Kory Grow, Rolling Stone, 19 July 2022
• In more recent years, the star has traded in its steady, 400-day cycle of glaring and quieting for something much shorter and more spasmodic.
  — Matt Hrodey, Discover Magazine, 23 May 2023
• Somewhere along the fault line, a section of rock can take the strain no longer and gives way, allowing a tectonic plate to jerk into motion in a series of spasmodic shudders.
  — Nathaniel Scharping, Discover Magazine, 12 Sep. 2016
• As Arthur acquires a pistol, carries out his first spasmodic acts of violence, and feels a thrill of power run through his veins, the film rattles along a subway track that may or may not be the same one the rest of the world is riding.
  — BostonGlobe.com, 3 Oct. 2019
• His voice—despite a longtime condition, spasmodic dysphonia, that can cause spasms in the muscles controlling his speech—was strong and clear.
  — Ryan D'agostino, Town & Country, 19 Oct. 2020
• Because of the stress of the pandemic and running a business, I have been diagnosed with a condition called spasmodic dysphonia.
  — Lisa Deaderick, San Diego Union-Tribune, 15 Aug. 2020
• Peppermint oil has been linked with reducing pain, stomach upset, and other symptoms of IBS, largely because of the anti-spasmodic effects of methanol found in the stuff.
  — Good Housekeeping, 15 Dec. 2017
• In the midst of a pandemic and a recession, when the ugly words and spasmodic evil deeds and gestural politics of an unfit president have led many to despair, the country may seem wide open to every kind of change.
  — David Bromwich, Harper's Magazine, 27 Oct. 2020
• Amid the spasmodic violence, the unthinkable became routine: the throwing of poles like spears at the police, a vandal working unimpeded to smash a Capitol window.
  — New York Times, 16 Oct. 2021
• Horrific spasmodic cycles of violence and death is the result.
  — Keith Kloor, Discover Magazine, 15 Aug. 2014
• According to the National Library of Medicine, asafoetida has been used as a cough expectorant, an anti-spasmodic and to kill parasites or worms.
  — Shalbha Sarda, CNN, 11 Jan. 2023
• The dancers moonwalk and roll their necks; their motions are smooth and spasmodic by turns, and several of them present bulging eyes and pained expressions that recall the existential intensity of butoh.
  — Jason Farago, New York Times, 28 Sep. 2022
• Whenever a town undertakes spasmodic bouts of rebuilding, trucks arrive bearing cement blocks, rebar, and bags of dry concrete that villagers use to repair crumbling walls or add extra rooms.
  — Justin Davidson, Curbed, 20 Apr. 2023
• Toby, in Burnap’s impressive, spasmodic bursts of nervous energy, loves Eric some but himself more.
  — Peter Marks, Washington Post, 18 Nov. 2019
• Kennedy said he was diagnosed in his 40s with spasmodic dysphonia, a neurological condition affecting the voice box that causes strained speech.
  — Abc News, ABC News, 27 Sep. 2023
• Mensch catalogues the spasmodic conversion of lower Manhattan during the next decade.
  — Nicole Rudick, The New Yorker, 30 Sep. 2023

Last Updated: 5 Sep 2024