intermittent fever
LowTechnical / Medical
Definition
Meaning
A fever that starts and stops repeatedly at intervals, rather than being continuous.
Historically and in modern medicine, a fever pattern characterised by periods of normal temperature between episodes of elevated body temperature, often associated with specific infectious diseases like malaria (tertian, quartan fever).
Linguistics
Semantic Notes
Almost exclusively used in medical or historical contexts to describe a specific symptom pattern. It is a clinical descriptor, not a disease itself.
Dialectal Variation
British vs American Usage
Differences
No significant lexical differences. Both dialects use the term identically in medical contexts.
Connotations
Identical clinical, non-colloquial connotations.
Frequency
Identically low frequency outside specialised medical fields.
Vocabulary
Collocations
Grammar
Valency Patterns
Patient + have/experience + intermittent feverIntermittent fever + associated with + diseaseVocabulary
Synonyms
Strong
Neutral
Weak
Vocabulary
Antonyms
Usage
Context Usage
Business
Virtually never used.
Academic
Used in medical, nursing, and historical research papers and textbooks to describe symptoms.
Everyday
Extremely rare; would only be used when discussing a specific, diagnosed medical condition with precision.
Technical
Standard term in clinical medicine, epidemiology, and medical history.
Examples
By Part of Speech
adverb
British English
- The signal dropped out intermittently throughout the call.
American English
- It rained intermittently all afternoon.
adjective
British English
- The patient's intermittent symptoms puzzled the GP.
American English
- He had intermittent pain in his side.
Examples
By CEFR Level
- He was ill and had a fever that came and went.
- The doctor said the intermittent fever could be a sign of infection.
- Historical records describe soldiers suffering from intermittent fever, likely malaria, during the campaign.
- The classic presentation of uncomplicated malaria is an intermittent fever with paroxysms of chills, high fever, and sweating.
Learning
Memory Aids
Mnemonic
Think of an INTERMITTENT windscreen wiper: it goes, stops, goes, stops. An INTERMITTENT fever does the same with heat.
Conceptual Metaphor
FEVER IS A WAVE (it comes in waves, with troughs of normalcy).
Watch out
Common Pitfalls
Translation Traps (for Russian speakers)
- Avoid direct calque 'интермиттирующая лихорадка' in everyday speech; the standard medical term is 'перемежающаяся лихорадка'.
- Do not confuse with 'постоянная лихорадка' (continuous fever).
Common Mistakes
- Misspelling 'intermittent' as 'intermitent' or 'intermitant'.
- Using it loosely for any minor, fluctuating illness instead of a defined fever pattern.
Practice
Quiz
In which context is the term 'intermittent fever' most appropriately used?
FAQ
Frequently Asked Questions
They are very similar and often used interchangeably in medicine. 'Intermittent' specifically emphasises the pattern of stopping and starting within a single illness episode, while 'recurrent' can also refer to fevers that return after complete resolution.
It's uncommon. Typical viral upper respiratory infections like the common cold usually cause a low-grade, continuous fever or no fever at all. Intermittent fever patterns are more suggestive of specific bacterial or parasitic infections.
Malaria is the most classic example, producing very regular intermittent fever cycles (e.g., every 48 or 72 hours) depending on the Plasmodium species.
Yes, it is still a standard and precise term used in modern clinical diagnosis to describe a specific fever pattern, despite having historical roots.